


Into the Living Sea

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Angst, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Institutionalization, M/M, Mental Institutions, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-15
Updated: 2008-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:44:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of <i>Don’t Look Back</i>, Nathan Petrelli has his brother committed to a mental institution. Peter suspects that Nathan’s reasons for locking him up have more to do with Nathan’s nervousness about his campaign and his guilt over his sexual relationship with Peter than with any noble concern for Peter’s well-being. In his attempts to get Nathan to relent, Peter unwittingly makes things worse, and then much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rockin’ groovy thanks go to [](http://blithesea.livejournal.com/profile)[**blithesea**](http://blithesea.livejournal.com/) for the [trailer](http://blithesea.livejournal.com/264617.html). Further thanks to [](http://redandglenda.livejournal.com/profile)[**redandglenda**](http://redandglenda.livejournal.com/) for the beta, and thanks to [](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/profile)[**jaune_chat**](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/) for late-night phone calls and pithy comments.

[   
](http://s562.photobucket.com/albums/ss62/HSFAWinter2009/?action=view&current=hc-brighteyed_jill.png)

I am! Yet what I am who cares, or knows?  
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.  
I am the self-consumer of my woes;  
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,  
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.

\- From _Written in Northampton County Asylum_ by John Clare  
******

“No, I haven’t yet. It’s not until Tuesday. Well ask Jamie. Doesn’t she keep track of that crap?”

Nathan’s voice cut through Peter’s grogginess. He struggled to open his eyes, and caught sight of Nathan, ear to his cell phone. “Well have her look at the damn calendar.” Nathan turned and met Peter’s eyes.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back in a few.” Nathan snapped the phone shut and brushed a hand across Peter’s forehead. “Peter?”

“Nathan?” Peter’s voice was hoarse. “What is this?”

Nathan pulled up a chair next to the bed and took Peter’s hand. “You’re in the hospital, Peter.”

Peter closed his eyes. He didn’t feel hurt. The last thing he remembered was being on the roof of the hospital with Nathan, when he’d finally flown, finally walked across air. He remembered going back to his apartment with Nathan, remembered falling asleep in Nathan’s arms. Then nothing. He pulled himself upright and looked around, taking in the pale pink walls, the sparse furniture: bed, chair, table. There was no IV, no monitoring equipment, no call button. “This isn’t a hospital,” Peter said, and struggled to climb out of bed.

Nathan put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back down. “Yes it is Pete.”

Peter’s eyes flew past Nathan’s hand down to the edge of the bed where leather straps dangled. “You… What did you do?”

“You need to be in a safe place where you can work through these problems you’re having.”

“You had me committed?” Peter stared at him, and Nathan met his gaze calmly. “I don’t need to be in a mental hospital. I am not crazy!”

“Peter, you tried to kill yourself.”

“I did not try to kill myself. We _flew_ , Nathan. You said so yourself.”

“I was lying.” Nathan didn’t even have the decency to flinch when he said it. “I didn’t want you to jump off another building. I would have said anything.”

“You saw it. I _flew_ , Nathan! Twice!”

“Is that what you’re going to tell the shrinks?”

Peter tried to catch his breath. Suddenly Nathan’s hand, which had felt like a comforting weight on his chest, seemed to be crushing him. “We flew,” he said, pushing through the hitch in his throat. “Don’t do this.”

“I have to.” Nathan leaned over to press a kiss to Peter’s lips. Peter opened his mouth to pull Nathan in, to make this all a Grimm tale in which Peter could beak the spell on the prince with a kiss. Nathan pulled away. “I love you,” he said without meeting Peter’s eyes. “See you soon, kiddo.”  
\--

Our Lady of Mercy Hospital and Rehabilitation Center didn’t exactly live up to the horrors Peter remembered from watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Peter was surprised at how normal his fellow inmates seemed: no screaming, gibbering loonies, rocking back and forth in a corner, no one who seemed violent. Everyone here was the quiet kind of mad. Peter should have known: only the best for the Petrelli family.

The orderlies were an interchangeable mix of burly men in blue scrubs. They stood unobtrusive sentinel in hallways, in the gym, anywhere the patients gathered in groups. They weren’t threatening, particularly. They were just there. During his first few days Peter began to recognize individual orderlies, although he didn’t have names to put with them yet: the bald orderly who always smelled like pizza, the young blond one who had a crush on Nurse Emma, the old guy with all the nose hair.

Nurses he could charm names out of: Caroline, and Jade who worked the early mornings, and good old Helen with her throaty cackle, souvenir of a lifetime of smoking.

The place was small, so it didn’t take Peter long to get the lay of the land. The encouraging news was that Our Lady of Mercy wasn’t exactly maximum security. If Peter couldn’t actually break out, at least he should be able to sneak a phone call. Peter tried flirting with the night-shift nurse, Kara. She smiled at him and laughed at his jokes, but when he slipped in a casual comment about the phone, her laughter fled. She called an orderly (the red-head with the Thundercats tattoo) to escort him back to his room.

Nathan must have given the staff very specific instructions. He was playing this game well, but there was no doubt in Peter’s mind that it _was_ a game: a little slap on the wrist to remind Peter that he had to behave. If he wanted to get out of here, Peter was going to have to get creative.  
\--

The chief psychiatrist, Doctor Barrister, wore wire-rim glasses and spoke in a soothing baritone that threatened to lull Peter to sleep. His desk was a huge oak monstrosity paired with a huge leather swivel chair. Barrister seemed like he would be more at home in a lecture hall than an examining room.

“Tell me about these dreams you have,” Barrister said. His pen was poised to take notes.

From the other side of the desk, Peter glared at him. “They’re not dreams.”

“Okay, Peter. What do you call them?”

“I don’t know. Visions? They’re not dreams.”

“All right.” Barrister managed to sound both reasonable and infuriating. Peter was torn between trying to prove to this guy that he wasn’t crazy and messing with him so he _would_ think Peter was genuinely nuts. “Tell me about your visions, Peter.”

“I can fly.” That was the truth, crazy or not.

“I see.” Barrister wrote something in his notebook. “Where does this happen?”

“In the city. Once, I was sitting with one of my—the man I take care of, and then I just got up and took off, out the window.”

“Flying away from your responsibilities?”

“No,” Peter said immediately. Peter didn’t have responsibilities, not really. No one had ever trusted him with anything important.

“Where do you fly to, Peter?”

“Around.” He’d never really thought about it. Just getting off the ground would be enough, for starters.

“If you could fly anywhere, where would you fly?”

To Nathan. He’d fly to Nathan. But he didn’t say that.  
\--

Nathan didn’t come to see him. Visiting hours came and went: Thursday, Friday, Saturday. No visitors allowed on Sunday, and Peter attended the service in the on-site chapel.

Peter discovered that practically the entire population of Our Mother of Mercy attended mass. The chapel was small but well-appointed: cushioned pews and stained glass windows featuring the saints. Peter read the plaques by the windows as he waited for the others to file in: Saint Dymphna, patron saint of those confined in asylums, pray for us. Job, protect us against depression. Amabilis, we ask your intersession against possession by devils.

One of the patients, a woman with long gray hair done up in a tight braid, tapped Peter on the shoulder and pointed to a window featuring a pretty red-headed woman in a flowing yellow dress. “That’s Saint Vivian,” the woman explained. “She died in a madhouse after refusing to let her family turn her into a prostitute. Pray to her for protection against insanity.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Peter said. The woman nodded and went to take her seat in the pews. Peter took one last glance at Saint Vivian’s upturned, beatific face, and then found a seat for himself.

When the priest entered, an ancient man with a sparse white beard, everyone stood still and silent. Peter didn’t know mad people could be so well-behaved. Once mass began, Peter was surprised to discover how much he could still recite along with the rest of the congregation.

“I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do,” they all intoned together, and Peter with them.

Peter remembered attending church with his mother when he was little. About halfway through the mass, when he’d start to get fidgety, Angela’s hand would close warningly on his arm. Whenever Nathan was home from school and came to church with them, though, there was no need for her chastisement. Peter was content to stare at his brother all through the homily. Nathan was the master of sitting still, and Peter strove in all things to follow his example.

Peter’s favorite part of the service was the kiss of peace. Angela would give each of her boys an affectionate peck on the cheek, and Peter got to kiss Nathan, too. Even when they were older, attending Easter or Christmas mass with their parents meant at least once chance to kiss before God.

Nathan had to be messing with Peter, to put him in a Catholic mental institution.

On the way out, Peter made another examination of the stained glass windows. They were lit with spotlights; the chapel was actually an interior room. No escape this way. At least, not by mortal means.  
\--

Peter’s first plan was simply to wait Nathan out. Nathan’s Congressional campaign couldn’t possibly see any benefit from having his brother locked up in an institution, so Peter was sure he wouldn’t be left in here for long. If Peter behaved, didn’t pitch a fit, didn’t _act_ like a crazy person, he knew Nathan would relent. Peter simply had to demonstrate that he could play nice.

The problem with this plan was that Peter had never enjoyed being idle. Day after day passed with nothing to do and no word from his family. Inmates (or “residents,” as the staff called them) weren’t allowed to watch television or read the newspaper. Movies (PG or G-rated only) were shown in the recreation room each evening, and the residents stared at them, expressions unchanged whether the night’s offering was _Happy Feet_ or _Casablanca_.

During the day there were other activities available: crafts and library time and group exercise. Nurses tried to engage Peter with balsa-wood sculpture projects or puzzles of landscapes or finger-painting. Never in his life had Peter felt such a complete void of purpose. Working with hospice patients had involved a lot of waiting, but it never felt useless, not like this.

Peter tried talking to the other residents and found that, for once in his life, he didn’t have the right social capital to build friendships. The old woman who’d told him about Saint Vivian smiled at him from time to time, but she spent most of every day sitting in the corner with her rosary. The other residents ignored Peter or, when he made an effort to participate in activities, admitted him indifferently.

One day during breakfast, a young woman, blonde pixie-cut hair framing an earnest face, asked Peter, “What are you doing here?”

He said, “My brother wanted me out of the way,” and gave her a charming smile.

She frowned at him. “But what’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said with a shrug.

“Nothing?”

Peter kept smiling.

The woman glared and walked away.  
\--

The most interesting and most painful part of each day was Peter’s session with Doctor Barrister.

Today Doctor Barrister had on a brown suit and a cornflower blue tie with a yellow striped button-up. Peter considered telling him he was clashing, but decided he didn’t want to do Barrister any favors. Instead, he sat quietly on the couch and waited.

At his desk, Barrister signed a few more documents with a flourish, before coming to sit in his armchair across from Peter: no desk between them today. “What did you do this morning, Peter?”

“Nothing.”

“Same as yesterday, then.”

“Exactly the same, yeah.” Peter was beginning to suspect that the boredom was deliberate, to wear patients down and make them so eager for stimulation that they’d gladly spill all their secrets to the doctors.

“Why do you think you don’t fit in here, Peter?”

“Because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Barrister settled back in his chair. “So why are you here, Peter?”

“Nathan put me in here.” Peter sounded petulant, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He was bitter.

“Why do you think Nathan would want you to be here?”

“I’m an embarrassment,” Peter said. Sharing his thoughts like this, with a relative stranger, was oddly liberating. Peter had never gone to therapy before. Angela had always said therapy was something for the _nouveau riche_ , who didn’t realize the importance of keeping matters in the family. But now Peter was starting to understand what all the fuss was about.

“Why do you say you’re an embarrassment, Peter?”

“I don’t do what the family wants.”

“And how does that make you feel, Peter?”

“Angry, I guess.” Angry. Sad. Lost. Maybe even depressed.

“Tell me more about that.”

“I don’t deserve to be here.”

“And?” Barrister prompted, pen poised.

“And what?”

“So why are you here, Peter?”

“I told you. Nathan.”

“And why does Nathan want you here?”

“I don’t know,” Peter muttered. He was starting to get angry with himself for sounding so petulant. He hated feeling like a spoiled child.

“Is that the truth, Peter?” Barrister asked. Peter slumped in his seat and said nothing. “If Nathan was here right now, and I asked him why he brought you here, what would he say?”

“He’d say I tried to kill myself.” In fact, he was probably saying it all over town. There had probably been a press conference.

“Why did you try to kill yourself, Peter?”

“I didn’t,” he snapped.

“If we asked Nathan, what would he say? Would he say you tried to kill yourself?”

Peter paused. Mentally ill people didn’t know they were mentally ill. Peter had dealt with enough dementia in his time to understand that the mind could play tricks. And now that Barrister brought it up, Peter wasn’t sure of his own version of the story; it was a bit fuzzy. Nathan, on the other hand, seemed pretty sure about what he’d seen. “I… I jumped off a building,” Peter said slowly. “He was there when I jumped.”

“Why did you jump off a building, Peter?”

A perfectly reasonable question. “I thought I could fly.”

“ _Can_ you fly, Peter?”

He didn’t know the answer to that. And he was starting to feel a little queasy. Did he honestly think he could fly? Had he really flown? “I don’t know.”  
\--

Plan A wasn’t working. It had been a week, and Nathan hadn’t called, hadn’t visited, hadn’t written. They’d fought before; they were brothers, and closer than brothers, and it was bound to happen. In the past, they’d sometimes gone weeks without speaking, but this was different. This time, Nathan wanted Peter to know he was being punished.

Peter’s new plan was to fold; let Nathan think he’d won this round. Once Peter was out of this place, he’d talk to Ma and convince her to take a vacation with him somewhere until the campaign was over. Nathan would probably be glad to have both of them out of the way. During craft time, he asked one of the orderlies for a pen and paper, and wrote Nathan a letter.

As he sat in the recreation room composing a letter, the orderly (the skinny black man who wore a Claddagh ring) kept a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t try to jab the pen through his eardrum or anything similarly destructive. Peter composed a plea for release thinly veiled as an apology.

 _Dear Nathan,_

 _I’m sorry for the worry I have caused you and Mother. In the past few weeks I have made many changes in my life, and I have not dealt with this transition as well as I should have done. I regret my selfish actions, and I apologize for not considering the family name and in particular your professional obligations before acting. I am prepared to behave more prudently in the future. Please accept my assurances that my continued incarceration is no longer necessary. I look forward to returning home and lending every possible assistance to your campaign._

 _Best regards,  
Peter_

He knew making it so formal was a bit bratty, but if he was going to admit defeat, he could at least do it in style. He at least hoped Nathan would show the letter to their mother; she’d be so proud.  
\--

Nathan finally paid a visit on Friday. An orderly (the Latvian man with the mustache) ushered Peter into the visitor’s room and left at Nathan’s curt nod. As soon as the door shut behind him, Nathan said, “Nice letter.”

Peter smiled smugly. “I used my best handwriting.”

“Cute, Peter, but you’ve only been here a week. I think you should give it more of a chance.”

Peter blinked. “A chance?”

“To help you.”

Peter waited for a sign that Nathan was joking, but none came. “Do you really think I’m crazy?”

Nathan straightened his tie and looked out the window. “That would be the only conclusion a person could make from your behavior.”

Peter slid out of his chair and came around to sit on the edge of the table in front of Nathan. “This is ridiculous.”

Nathan glanced at the windowless door before wrapping a hand around Peter’s hip. “I’m not doing this to punish you, Peter.” His eyes were fixed somewhere on the wall over Peter’s left shoulder.

“I don’t believe you. I’ve said I’ll be good.” He reached down to press a kiss to Nathan’s lips, but Nathan turned his head at the last minute, and Peter’s kiss landed on his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

Nathan continued looking resolutely away. “We’re in a mental institution, for starters. We’re not doing this here.”

Peter moved his mouth to Nathan’s ear. “Then check me out and let’s go home,” he breathed, and flicked his tongue out to trace the shell of Nathan’s ear.

Nathan grabbed Peter’s shoulders and pushed him back to arm’s length. “We’re not doing this, Peter. It’s dangerous for me, and it’s bad for you.”

Now Peter started to feel nauseous. “What do you mean?”

“You’re sick, Peter, and this is the best place for you.”

Peter slid down onto the floor and reached up to put his hands on Nathan’s knees. “I am not crazy. I think this place might be making me crazy.”

“Well, if it’s that short a trip, then it’s probably best you were in here to begin with.” Nathan pushed Peter’s hands off of him and went to stand by the window.

After a moment, Peter joined him. “Can you tell me something, honestly?” Peter asked.

“Sure.” Nathan said it so easily that it couldn’t have been a sincere promise. Peter decided to ask his question anyway.

“Am I in here just because of the election?”

“I was worried about you. I don’t have time to watch you twenty-four hours a day and make sure you don’t take another swan dive off a high-rise,” Nathan said. That didn’t answer the question.

“You can’t afford for me to kill myself while you’re running for office.”

Nathan grabbed Peter by the back of his neck and pulled him in sharply. “You are _not_ going to kill yourself. You will not do that to me and Ma. What we went through with Dad was enough. So get your head straight.” He let go, and Peter stumbled back a step. Nathan went back to staring out the window, and Peter watched him for a long moment, considering. Nathan’s non-answer, his knee-jerk reaction, had given Peter cause for suspicion.

“It is just that, right?” he asked. “You’re worried I’m depressed. You’re not….” He pressed a hand against Nathan’s chest. Nathan batted the hand away and went back to sit at the table. Peter watched him carefully. His movements were sharp, jerky, too controlled. No one else, except perhaps Angela, would have noticed, but Peter had learned to recognize when Nathan was hiding something. “You locked me up because I’m in love with you?”

“Don’t say that,” Nathan snapped. He straightened his tie.

“You’re using this as an excuse to…” He couldn’t even find the words.

“This should have stopped a long time ago, Pete.” His words were too short, clipped and deliberate. “It should never have started. But this, all of this crap you’ve been hurting yourself with? I can’t help but think if you weren’t so worried about… You need to focus on yourself.”

“You think I’m crazy to be in love with you.”

Nathan pretended he hadn’t heard that. “You’re sick, Peter. In here, they can help you deal with your depression.”

Peter came to stand right next to the table, but Nathan wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Have you been practicing this conversation? Because I don’t think you’re listening to me.”

Nathan stood abruptly. “I should go.”

“Don’t you walk out of here.” Peter scrambled to get between his brother and the door, but Nathan brushed him off like a fly. “Nathan! Tell me why you’re doing this.”

Nathan paused with his hand on the door handle. For the smallest of moments, Peter thought he was going to explain. Then he said, “I have a busy campaign schedule the next ten days or so. I won’t be able to fit in another visit until the fourteenth. You understand.” And he left.

Peter sat down at the table and stared after Nathan until the orderly (the Latvian again) came to take him back to the activity room, where he spent the rest of the afternoon staring out the window. Loving Nathan, wanting Nathan to care about him, wanting to be with Nathan was not a mental illness. Or if it was, it wasn’t something that drugs and therapy could fix. And if they couldn’t do anything for him here, he had to get out and do something about it himself.  
\--

Peter wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. It seemed so simple. All the widows in the facility had bars, of course, but not the window in Doctor Barrister’s office.

An orderly (the one with shaggy brown hair and a crooked nose) brought him to the office at the usual time. Doctor Barrister wasn’t there, but Peter slid into his usual chair anyway. The orderly gave him a stern look, and Peter returned a guileless smile that he hoped conveyed how harmless he was. No history of violence. Well-behaved, polite young man. The orderly edged closer to the door, and Peter kept up his vacant smile. “Stay,” the orderly said finally, then stepped outside to have Doctor Barrister paged.

The smile dropped from Peter’s face. There would be enough time. He sped to the window and threw it open. It was the old fashioned kind, with no screen. Perfect.

Outside, the sky was very blue, brighter than Peter remembered, and cloudless. He threw one foot up on the sill and jumped, concentrating on that sky. That brilliant blue seemed so close.

He heard screaming that he thought came from the building, and only then did Peter realize he was falling.  
\--

Peter woke up back in his room. His whole body ached, and his left ankle throbbed viciously. Angela sat at his bedside, watching him. Not reading, not filing her nails, just waiting for him to open his eyes.

“Ma?” His throat was scratchy. He desperately wanted a drink of water.

“Your ankle is sprained, and you bruised a rib,” she said immediately.

He closed his eyes again so he wouldn’t have to see her expression of disappointment and disgust. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You’re lucky it was only the second story.” She waited until he opened his eyes to continue. “You’re a fool, Peter.”

“Where’s Nathan?” he asked meekly.

“He’s busy, Peter. He has a life and a career, and he cannot afford to come running every time you get into trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I need to talk to him.”

“He told you he’d be back on the fourteenth, and he will be.”

“Does he know I jumped out a window?”

Angela’s frown deepened. “Are you doing this for his attention? I will not help you hijack Nathan’s future.”

“I’m not… I never wanted…”

Angela waited for him to stumble into silence. “Your brother loves you, Peter. Never doubt it. But what you’re doing now could destroy him.”

Peter swallowed hard. “I don’t want that. I just…” It seemed like there was something crucial he need to articulate, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He wondered if they’d given him pain meds; the edges of his vision seemed fuzzy.

“You have to let him go, Peter.” Angela rubbed a hand tenderly over his forehead. “Do you think when he’s a Congressman that he’ll be able to drop everything and come running every time you get your heart broken?”

“What does this have to do with my being in here?”

“I know how close you two are,” she said, brushing his bangs aside. “I _know_ , Peter.”

Peter forgot how to breathe for a moment. He searched her eyes, trying to figure out what she meant by that.

“I’ll be here for you, Peter. I’ll always be here. But it’s time to let Nathan go.”  
\--

Peter couldn’t identify the drugs by the shape and color of the pills they gave him. One was white, two were pink, and there was one big round yellow pill. The drugs made Peter lightheaded. Nurse Helen said, “Don’t sweat it, honey. That’ll go away once you get used to the dosage.” At the moment, though, it was distracting.

Now that he’d jumped out a window, Peter attained something of a celebrity status among the other residents. The pixie-cut woman came to talk to him during craft time, setting her macaroni sculpture down right in the middle of Peter’s puzzle.

“Nurse Kara says you’re delusional,” she announced happily. “How’s your leg?”

Peter flexed his ankle within the confines of its bandage. It ached. “They say it’s not broken.”

“Too bad,” she said. “Might have been nice to have a visit to the hospital. The real hospital, I mean.” She daubed a spec of glue onto her sculpture—it might have been a castle, or perhaps a buffalo—and affixed a new piece of macaroni. “I saw your mother when she came to visit. You’re a Petrelli, yes?”

“Yeah. How did you—?”

“We run in the same circle. Well, ran. No running allowed in here, is there? I’m an Aster. Of the Sutton Place Asters.”

“Oh.” And Peter actually did remember the Asters. They’d been at his parents’ dinner parties regularly; they were in some sort of import business.

“I’m an embarrassment,” the Aster girl continued. “Well, hysterical and impulsive, but being an embarrassment is the worst symptom, at least in my mother’s eyes.”

“Hold on…” A memory floated at the edge of Peter’s consciousness. “Rebekah, right?”

She nodded excitedly and clapped her hands. “Gone but not forgotten.”

“You went to my high school. We were just kids when you…”

“Got knocked up? Don’t forget getting beaten up by my druggie boyfriend and losing the baby,” she said, brandishing a piece of pasta. “All very embarrassing.”

“That was years ago.”

“Well, the embarrassment doesn’t go away, Petrelli.” She daubed another glue spot onto her sculpture. “How gauche would it be for my parents to bring me home? Having to explain at parties where I’ve been for the past seven years.” She shuddered. “No thank you.”

“So… Is there something wrong with you?”

“I’m hysterical. That’s the diagnosis. And…” She lowered her voice and leaned in to whisper to Peter. “I’m a sexual deviant.”

Peter suppressed a smile. “How long do you have to stay here?”

“As long as my parents want.” At Peter’s snort of disapproval, she continued. “Daddy built the east wing, you know. If he asks them to keep me, they’ll keep me.”  
\--

Logically, Peter knew that Doctor Barrister wasn’t getting smaller. He’d come to the conclusion that the drugs just made him seem farther away. Today Barrister seemed positively tiny there, back behind the desk again. The Latvian orderly was in the room today, hovering behind Peter, just as a precaution. He, too, seemed smaller.

“I’d like to talk about your father, Peter,” Barrister said.

“Then talk,” Peter muttered. It took a great deal of effort to get even those words across the gulf that separated here from there. If only everything didn’t seem so distant.

“How did your father die?” Barrister asked.

“Heart attack,” Peter said automatically. It took him a few seconds to remember that was a lie. “He killed himself.”

“How did you feel about that, Peter?” Barrister had his head cocked to the side like a puppy. With his glasses, which magnified his eyes, and his large ears, the whole picture was rather comic. But puppy had asked him a question…About his father, maybe?

“I didn’t know it was suicide,” Peter said. “Not until recently.”

“Why did your father kill himself?”

“He was depressed,” Peter said gravely. That must mean Arthur hadn’t prayed enough to Saint Vivian. Or maybe the saints had ignored him. Either way, Arthur was just as dead.

“How do you know he was depressed?”

“I didn’t know.” Peter shrugged. “My mother told me.”

“Do you think you would know if someone was depressed?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer, and closed it again, because obviously he had not known. Hadn’t even suspected.

“How about your brother?” Barrister asked. “Did he know?”

“Yes,” Peter admitted.

“Do you trust his judgment?”

That was part of the problem. “Yes I do.”  
\--

The orderly with dark, curly hair like an angel escorted Peter into the visitor’s room. Nathan was there, attention absorbed in his Blackberry. The angelic orderly closed the door and left them alone.

“You don’t really think I’m sick, do you?” Peter asked as he slipped into the chair across the table from Nathan.

“I wouldn’t have put you in here if I didn’t,” Nathan said distractedly.

“How did you know Dad was depressed?”

Nathan glanced up from his phone and raised an eyebrow. “Are you adding paranoia to your list of symptoms now?”

“How did you know about Dad?”

“He drank. He picked fights with me, and with Ma. He didn’t enjoy going to work anymore.” Nathan rattled off the signs like a grocery list, half his mind on whatever important e-mail he was reading.

“And from that you were sure?”

“Yes. It was fairly obvious.”

“And now you’re sure about me.”

“Peter,” he began warningly.

“What are my symptoms?”

Nathan looked at him a moment like he was sure Peter didn’t want to hear the answer to this. When Peter said nothing, he sighed. “Delusions. You say you have visions, you think you can fly. You jumped off a building. And you would have jumped off another one, too.” He returned to his phone.

“And out a window,” Peter muttered. “Don’t forget that one.”

“What?” Nathan’s head snapped up and suddenly Peter had his undivided attention. “What did you say?”

“Didn’t Mom tell you? I jumped from my shrink’s office.”

“Here? When—?” Nathan leaned forward to grab Peter’s wrist, then stopped himself. “Never mind.” Nathan recovered quickly. “Are you okay?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Peter said. His thoughts were coming slower these days, but he knew there was something wrong with this reaction to his “accident.” “Why didn’t anyone tell you?” Peter asked. “I thought you’d come see me…”

Nathan sat back and loosened his tie. “You don’t need to jump out a window to get my attention, Peter.”

“No. Apparently even that doesn’t work.”

Nathan slid his phone into his pocket and regarded his little brother critically. “Why did you do it?”

“I was trying to escape. To fly away.”

“And you couldn’t?” Nathan sounded almost puzzled.

“No. Obviously. I fell.” Peter crossed his arms over his chest and settled back in his chair before he processed Nathan’s question. “Wait, you seem surprised,” he said as the strangeness of Nathan’s response dawned on him. “I’m _not_ crazy. I’ve flown before and you knew it!”

“No,” Nathan said firmly. “No. Peter, that’s ridiculous.”

Peter was out of his seat in a flash, kneeling next to Nathan. “You know I’m not crazy, and you’re still letting them keep me here?”

“You’re not well, Peter.”

“You mean I’m an _embarrassment_ ,” Peter said bitterly. “I am not insane, Nathan. Tell them!”

“This? This behavior is irrational and yeah, crazy.”

“Is that so?” Peter grabbed Nathan’s arm, digging his fingers in hard. “What about locking up your brother so you won’t have to deal with your emotions. Is that rational?”

Nathan stood. “I’m leaving, Peter.”

“Don’t walk away from me!” He jumped after Nathan and pushed him hard. Normally Nathan was more than Peter’s equal in a fight, in brotherly and not-so-brotherly tussles, but he obviously hadn’t been expecting an attack. He stumbled backwards, his foot caught on the chair leg, and he went down on his back with a startled grunt. Taking advantage of his momentary incapacitation, Peter pounced, straddling Nathan’s chest and grabbing his shoulders to shake him. “Tell them the truth!” he yelled. “You know I’m not crazy! Tell them!”

The commotion brought the nearest orderly (the angelic one, who must have been waiting just outside) bursting into the room. He just gaped for a moment—altercations like this were unheard of at Our Lady of Mercy, so he could hardly be blamed for hesitating—before Nathan snapped, “Get a nurse, damnit!”

The orderly ducked back into the hall to shout for help.

Meanwhile, Nathan tried to shove Peter off him. Peter barely managed to keep his seat by staying over Nathan’s center of gravity, using all the tricks his big brother had imparted back when Peter announced he wanted to go out for wrestling back in high school. Nathan twisted to buck Peter off, and Peter pressed his hands down onto Nathan’s shoulders. “Get off,” Nathan growled.

Peter wanted to shake him into submission, wanted to pull the truth from his mouth, wanted to wound Nathan the way he’d been wounded. Instead, he kissed him. For a moment, it was beautiful, just as Peter remembered: firm and salty and _home_.

Then Nathan hit him. Pain burst along the side of Peter’s jaw, and he found himself on his back, staring up at Nathan, who stood with fists clenched at his sides, eyes dark with anger.

The angelic orderly burst back into the room, followed by two other orderlies and Nurse Jade. They hovered momentarily until Nathan shouted, “For God’s sake, sedate him or something.”

Two orderlies reached for Peter, and immediately he sprang into action, trying to struggle out of their grasp. Nurse Jade fumbled for a needle while the three orderlies wrestled Peter into submission, pressing him into the floor while he writhed and continued shouting at his brother, “Tell them! Fuck you, Nathan, tell the truth!” Finally the orderlies had Peter’s leg sufficiently immobilized for Jade to jab the needle into. The last thing Peter saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was Nathan walking out of the room without a backward glance.  
\--

 

“Peter.”

Peter looked up. It took him a moment to remember where he was. The new drugs— yet another colorful pill cocktail—had been doing that to him: taking him away, muddling his thoughts, turning down the world to a low background buzz. After a few seconds, he recognized Doctor Barrister. The psychiatrist was looking at him expectantly. Peter realized he didn’t know how he’d gotten here, or what they’d been talking about. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I asked you how you’ve been sleeping, Peter,” Barrister said evenly.

Sleep. When he could escape from this place. The drugs helped with that, too. “I’m sleeping well, thanks.”

“What do you dream about, Peter?”

Nathan. Flying with Nathan. Fucking Nathan. Nathan. Nathan. Nathan. “I don’t remember.”

Barrister made a note on his clipboard. “Do you still dream of flying?”

“No.” Peter wondered if Barrister believed him. He doubted it.

“Are you thinking about harming yourself, Peter?”

Peter began to suspect that at some point Barrister had read a manual for clinical psychologists that specified how effective it was to always use the patient’s name at the end of a sentence. It was a little annoying. “No, I don’t want to hurt myself, Doctor Barrister.”

“Tell me about your mood, Peter. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” he lied. When Barrister said nothing else, he elaborated, “I want to go home.”

Barrister made another note. “What would you be doing at home right now?”

Lying stretched out face down on his bed, hands white-knuckled around the headboard, Nathan around and above him and in him, moving slow and deep. “Working,” Peter said. “I spend most days with my clients.” With a guilty pang, Peter wondered if Charles Deveaux was dead yet.

“Working. Do you enjoy being a nurse, Peter?”

“I enjoy helping people.”

“Is your job the reason you get up in the morning?”

“No,” he said without thinking.

Barrister scribbled on his clipboard. “Then what is the reason you get up in the morning, Peter?”

The answer that first came to Peter’s mind was a little frightening. He didn’t remember when his world had acquired such a narrow focus, but it had: Nathan was the reason he got up in the morning. But he didn’t say that.  
\--

“Who’s Nathan?”

Peter blinked. He was getting sick of losing time. Rebekah sat across the table from him in the activity room. “What?” he said.

“You were just saying his name over and over like a crazy person.” Rebekah made the international sign for crazy by rotating a finger next to her head.

“I was?”

“Yeah.” She went back to drawing. Today they’d given her oil pastels, and the table in front of her was a glorious, colorful mess.

Peter realized he was holding a blue pastel in his hand, but the paper in front of him was blank. He pressed the pastel to the paper, but he didn’t like the way the spot of color looked: like a too-small chunk of sky as seen from a barred window.

“So…” Rebekah said. “Old boyfriend?”

“Not… No,” he said finally. Not boyfriend. So much more than boyfriend. “My brother,” he explained.

“Right. I’d forgotten his name.” Rebekah crumpled up the sheet of paper in front of her and dropped it. Peter watched it fall, watched the inevitable pull of gravity dragging it down.

“I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently,” he said. Hadn’t been thinking about anything but Nathan, actually. He couldn’t remember when this had stopped being a game, a little family sparring match, and had become all about Nathan. Nathan had something to do with what was happening to him. Nathan was the key.

Peter rubbed his eyes tiredly. When he opened them, he saw Rebekah still watching him intently. He hoped he hadn’t spoken his thoughts out loud, but he’d been having trouble with that recently. “Isn’t there anyone in your family you miss?” he asked.

“Not really.” Rachel drew a yellow line across the top of a new sheet of paper. “I have three sisters, but we’re not that close.”

“I’m sorry.” Peter couldn’t imagine how different his life would have been if Nathan had played a smaller part.

“Don’t be. It’s easier that way. The four of us were always competing for everything: fashion, boys, Mother’s attention.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said firmly. He’d never competed with Nathan: there would have been no point. “The Petrellis always support each other.”

“You’re ridiculous, Peter. Families were created to give humans a more convenient way to stab each other in the back.” Even as she said it, Peter remembered his and Nathan’s decision to testify against their father, and dropped his eyes to the table.

Rebekah considered her drawing for a moment, and then grabbed the blue out of Peter’s hand and began covering the page with it. Peter watched the color spread, like an expanse of cloudless sky, and thought of freedom. He picked up the yellow she’d discarded, and began to draw.

“Doesn’t it bother you that your family’s keeping you locked up indefinitely?” he asked.

She shrugged. “If I was a sixteenth century Russian princess, they would have had me beheaded. Or worse…” She shuddered. “Sent me to a convent. At least here I can have some fun.”

“What, like finger-painting?” He considered the shape he’d drawn on his paper: it looked like a bloom of fire, or maybe an explosion.

“No, stupid. Fun.”

Peter gave her a bewildered look. Rebekah inclined her head toward the orderly (the ridiculously ripped guy with a buzz cut) standing at the nurses’ station. “My parents don’t mind how I entertain myself.”

Peter blamed the drugs for the fact that it took him almost a full minute to catch her drift. When he finally got it, he looked wide-eyed at Rebekah to see her grinning. What a novel idea.  
\--

Peter wasn’t exactly sure what this orderly’s name was. Russell, he thought, but it could have been Ray. He wasn’t too tall, but he was thick: strapping arms, broad shoulders, meaty fingers. He had watery blue eyes, and he looked bored most of the time. In any case, he’d been one of the ones who’d restrained Peter after his episode last week during Nathan’s visit. Russell-Ray-Reggie had helped hold him down while Nurse Jade was fumbling for the sedative, and Peter had felt the hard ridge of the orderly’s erection digging into his hip. To Peter’s mind, that made him an excellent candidate.

Russell came to strap Peter down in the evening, and tonight he copped a feel before he tightened the restraints around Peter’s thighs. It was as good a chance as Peter was likely to get. “Please,” he moaned. Any other time, he might have felt self-conscious about sounding like a porn star. Tonight, he wasn’t concerned about subtlety.

Russell tightened the thigh straps and muttered, “Shut up, princess.”

Peter bucked his thighs forward, stopped short by the straps. The movement was small, but enough for Russell to guess Peter’s intention. His glance flicked up to Peter’s face. He parted his lips wantonly. When Russell kept looking, Peter licked his lips.

“You whore,” Russell whispered. His hand slid from Peter’s thigh to cup his dick through the thin cotton of Peter’s pajama pants. Peter sighed in relief, and his head flopped back onto the pillow. “I knew it.” Then Russell’s hand was gone, and straps were pulled into place over Peter’s chest and arms. “See you soon.” Russell locked the door behind him.

Peter lay awake for a long time with his dick throbbing painfully, in time with his pulse. His mind drifted until he wasn’t sure if he was seeing dreams or memories.

“Hold still,” Nathan said to him.

Peter whined, but didn’t move as Nathan pressed his palm into the front of Peter’s pants. “Does that feel good?”

Peter nodded. Nathan slid his hand up onto Peter’s belly, then back down over his crotch. “You’ve been ready for me all day, haven’t you? Just waiting for me to come along and take care of this.”

“Yeah,” Peter gasped. He felt lightheaded, dizzy, and he couldn’t remember why he didn’t like that feeling.

Nathan tightened his grip, squeezing Peter hard, and he thought his knees might buckle.

“Don’t you dare move,” Nathan growled.

“Please,” Peter whined. He needed more, needed skin on skin, needed friction.

“Don’t push it.” Nathan pressed forward, pinning Peter against the wall with the full length of his body. His hand stayed where it was, warm and tight. “Have you been behaving?” Nathan’s hand became a fist, and the rough press of knuckles through the fabric felt delicious.

“Yes,” Peter whispered.

Nathan kicked Peter’s legs further apart, and this time when Nathan leaned in, Peter recognized the hard line of Nathan’s cock pressing into him. “I’ve got a very important question for you, Peter.” Nathan rutted against him, bumping their groins together.

One sharp intake of breath later, Peter found himself painfully on edge. He just needed a little more to take him over. He bucked against Nathan, and immediately found his hips gripped hard, pinning him to the wall. “I said hold still. This is an important question, Peter. I need you to answer carefully.”

“Okay, okay,” Peter said quickly. Nathan’s hands slid from his hips, one to cup his ass, one to rub him through his pants.

“This is important, Peter. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, of course, yes,” Peter babbled. He would say anything if Nathan would just get on with it.

Nathan leaned in close to Peter’s ear and whispered, “Can you fly?”

Peter froze. Nathan pulled away and looked at him expectantly. “I…” Peter said. As the silence stretched, Nathan put his hands in his pockets, and his expression began to darken. Peter’s dick throbbed. That lightheaded feeling was making it difficult to think. “I don’t…”

Nathan shook his head and began to back away.

“No, I mean I…” but Peter couldn’t seem to get any further then that, as if his brain couldn’t work out any other words.

“Wrong answer.” Nathan backed away three more steps, and was lost in the shadows of a room that had suddenly become murky.

“Don’t go,” Peter begged, but he could only manage a whisper. “Nathan! Don’t leave me.”

He moved to follow his brother, and that’s when he realized he was still strapped to the bed. He struggled against the arm cuffs, but they didn’t budge. He bucked up against the straps that trapped his legs, but he could only move a few inches, and there was no friction to be had. He sobbed in frustration, and struggled for a moment with all his strength. It got him nowhere. His dick throbbed and ached, a thump thump thump that echoed throughout his body.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the tear that escaped when he did so. “Nathan,” he called softly. He had to come back and finish this. He would. “Nathan? I need you.” Nathan didn’t return.  
\--

“You look like crap,” Rebekah announced at breakfast.

“My plan’s not going so well,” Peter grumbled.

“Which plan are you on now? D? E?”

“Very funny.” Peter shoved his eggs around his plate listlessly. They looked more yellow than scrambled eggs had any right to be.

Rebekah peeled an orange and watched him play with his food for another few minutes before she asked, “What do you hope to accomplish in all of this?”

“To make the nurses think I’m eating. I don’t want them to hassle me about eating.”

 

 

“Pretty people _are_ dumb,” Rebekah muttered.

“What?” Peter looked up from his eggs.

She spoke slowly and enunciated carefully. “What do you hope to accomplish with this grand plan of yours?”

“To get out of here.”

“Now you’re talking like a crazy person,” she said with satisfaction. “How is fu—.” She lowered her voice. “How is sleeping your way around the staff going to get you out of here?”

Peter frowned. He didn’t remember telling her about that. Maybe he was talking in his sleep again, while he was awake. That would explain it. “It’ll make Nathan mad.”

“Well, I know I’m crazy and my opinion can’t be trusted, but my thinking is that you’re entirely too dramatic about this. At least Nathan visits you. Your mom, too,” Rebekah said with a sigh. “That must mean they care.”

“They come to visit to tell me to toe the line.”

“They could do that over the phone,” she pointed out.

“It’s more effective when Nathan can give me the look of doom.”

Rebekah shrugged. “It’s amazing he makes time for you at all. He’s behind in the polls, you know. He’s busy with that.”

“What?”

“By eight points,” Rebekah said sadly.

Peter gaped at her. “How do you know?”

“My room’s next to the nurse’s station. They watch crappy news shows all damn night.”

Peter leaned forward eagerly. “What else have you heard?”

“Well, there’s a serial killer going around cutting open people’s heads all over the country and stealing their brains. Apparently, at this homecoming game in Texas—.”

“No, about the election,” Peter said impatiently. “About my brother.”

“Oh. I don’t remember. Just that he’s behind.” She popped an orange slice into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “You know, I used to have such a crush on him.”

“Really?”

“Have you seen your brother, Peter? He’s… mmmm.” She licked juice from her fingers until she caught Peter staring at her. Then she coughed nervously and wiped her hands with a napkin. “You’re very handsome too, of course.”

“Thanks,” Peter grumbled.

“He cares about you. I can tell. He wants to help you get better.”

“I’m not sick.”

“You jumped out a window, dummy,” Rebekah said with a roll of her eyes. “You tried to strangle your amazingly hot brother. Of course you’re sick. I mean, not eating people’s brains sick, but sick.”

Peter stirred his eggs. He was willing to admit that he could be crazy. Or going crazy. That didn’t mean he’d given up on getting out of here. That was still the plan. And right now, election or no, pissing off Nathan sounded like an excellent means to that end.  
\--

Long before lights out, Peter was in bed, fantasizing. By the time Russell slipped into the room, Peter was already hard. Russell locked the door from the inside and began emptying his pockets (keys, pen, condoms) onto the side table. Peter watched it all like a striptease.

Finally, he turned to Peter. The moonlight filtering in through the window gave him a pale, washed-out look. “You gonna cry rape on me?” Russell asked.

Peter shook his head.

“Good.” Russell walked over to the bed and took a moment looking Peter up and down. When he noticed Peter’s erection—all too visible through thin pajama pants—he chuckled. “God, you’re so ready for it. Suck.” He stuck two thick fingers into Peter’s mouth.

Peter closed his lips around the fingers and sucked, swirling his tongue around them like he was giving the blowjob of his life. Russell’s hands tasted like soap and latex. Nothing like Nathan.

“That’s right. Get ‘em nice and wet.”

With the hand that wasn’t getting sucked on, Russell began unfastening the straps that held Peter to the bed. When he had all the restraints loose, he pulled his hand away. “Get on the floor,” he said.

Peter crawled out of bed, and Russell grabbed him by the neck, pressing him down on his knees. “Now open wide,” he said. He pulled down the zipper on his pants—white uniform issue—and pushed the elastic waistband of his boxers down out of the way. “Come on.” He grabbed a handful of Peter’s hair to bring him in closer.

It wasn’t necessary; Peter was on the way to start with. But if Russell was in a hurry, so be it. Peter opened up his mouth and braced himself as Russell shoved in. His dick was thick, like the rest of him, but not as long as Nathan’s. It wasn’t too much for Peter to take—not by a long shot. He just wished good old Russ would give him a little time to adjust, was all.

“You take it so easy,” Russell said, and pushed his dick further down Peter’s throat, holding his head firmly in place. “Bet you do this a lot, yeah?”

Peter wanted to protest that his participation was mainly limited to repressing his gag reflex and that this was hardly a great demonstration of technique, but he was in no position to talk.

“Come on baby.” Russell pulled Peter’s head back momentarily, then pushed into his mouth again and sighed contentedly. Peter tried to set up a rhythm, but Russell kept a firm grip on his head, fucking Peter’s mouth in short, jerky thrusts. He tasted salty, like sweat, and a little stale. Not like Nathan. Nathan was always clean, somehow.

“You love this, don’t you? Yeah, may be one crazy bastard, but you’re still good for this, right beautiful?” Russell panted.

Slowly, Peter moved a hand up to rest on Russell’s hip. He wouldn’t want the guy to think he was going to try anything tricky. Russell was either too distracted to notice, or had gained some measure of trust in Peter, because he didn’t protest. Peter moved his hand to Russell’s dick, providing some friction in between the thrusts into his mouth.

“Yeah, that’s good. So hungry for it. You dirty little slut.”

Peter made a noncommittal noise in his throat, and Russell’s hand tightened in his hair. A few seconds later, he pulled Peter’s head all the way down, wiry pubic hairs tickling his nose as come spurted down his throat.

Russell let him go, and Peter caught himself against the floor, coughing. “That was nice, baby,” Russell said. “Did you like that?”

Peter nodded, and felt a sort of grim, seeping satisfaction unfurl in his stomach. This was just the type of thing Nathan hated to think of him doing. Well good. Maybe he’d learn.

“You’ve been so good tonight, I think I should help you out, too,” Russell said. He pushed Peter over, onto his back, and leaned over him. For a moment, Peter thought he wanted to kiss, but instead, Russell started sucking and biting a trail down Peter’s chest. His hand palmed Peter’s cock through his pants, and Peter shuddered. He’d almost forgotten about being hard, but especially after last night, he needed to come. Badly.

Russell fixed his mouth onto a spot just above Peter’s heart and worried the skin with his teeth. “Taste so good,” he hissed, breath hot against Peter’s body. “Sweet just like a girl.”

He wrapped his hand clumsily around Peter, fabric still separating them, and began to stroke roughly. A little whine escaped Peter’s mouth. It felt damn good to be touched, even if it wasn’t Nathan, wasn’t anything like him.

Russell chuckled. “You know, I was wondering if I should tell anyone else about you. Joe, Manny, hell, even Tom. They all like to get in a little play, if one of you nut jobs is willing. Would you like that, baby? Bet you would. Cock-hungry slut like you. But you’d take any dick anyone shoved your way, right? Yeah.”

He caught one of Peter’s nipples between his teeth and bit down, hard. Peter bucked up into him with a gasp. “See? You like it all.” Russell sped up his strokes, and Peter felt a wave of pleasure building. Nathan would be teasing him right now, making him beg for release, alternating the long smooth strokes Peter loved with quick squeezes to make sure it wasn’t over too quickly. Nathan always knew what he needed.

Russell just kept jerking Peter’s dick, monotonous as a chainsaw. Still, it was more than he’d had in a long time. “Please. I need…” Peter breathed, but he couldn’t say what he needed, exactly, other than his brother.

“It’s okay, baby.” Russell eased his hand inside Peter’s pants and slid his hand up the length of Peter’s cock. Skin-to-skin, it was finally enough, and Peter came with a strangled cry.

Russell ran his fingers through the mess of come splattered on Peter’s belly, and brought his hand up to Peter’s mouth. “Suck,” he said, and Peter obediently took Russell’s fingers into his mouth. “How d’you taste, baby?”

Salty and bitter, almost like Nathan. Peter closed his eyes and sucked Russell’s fingers clean. When he looked up again, Russell was watching him with a wide grin on his face.

“Maybe I’ll keep you to myself for now.”  
\--

Rebekah stared at him suspiciously over their tuna salad sandwiches. “Why the hell are you so happy?” she demanded.

Peter just smiled and took another bite of his sandwich.

“You look like you got laid,” she said testily.

Peter just kept eating.

“Oh my God,” Rebekah whispered. “You did. You really did it. Holy shit. Who?”

When Peter said nothing, Rebekah looked frantically around the room. “One of the nurses? Kara? No? No, maybe not… Wait… not… An orderly?” she whispered. “Seriously?”

Peter raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, it was totally an orderly. Well shit.” She leaned back in her chair and looked Peter up and down appraisingly. “Good for you, Petrelli.”  
\--

Still Nathan stayed away, and that made Peter deeply, unreasonably angry. Nathan had no way to know what Peter was doing, yet. He would, soon, when Peter had evidence to throw in his face. But because Nathan didn’t visit, Peter had no chance to deliver the ultimatum he’d developed: every day Nathan stayed away he would do something worse, dirtier. That would make Nathan sorry for his callousness.

On Thursday night, Peter gave Russell another blowjob. This one wasn’t so frantic, and Peter was able to use some technique.

“My own little whore,” Russell whispered when Peter deep-throated him.

Not yours, Peter thought, but he pulled back and tongued the slit of Russell’s dick anyway, eliciting a low moan. Peter kept his eyes closed and played, tugging at Russell’s balls, and alternated licks with long, deep swallows. He knew Nathan liked it that way.

Russell kept up a steady stream of obscenities until he pulled Peter off and came in spurts all over his face. Russell rubbed his hand through the mess and pressed two sticky fingers into Peter’s mouth. He licked them clean.  
\--

“Come on, tell me who it is,” Rebekah whispered. The activity room was dark, and the residents were all staring at the glow of the television. On screen, the VonTrapp children danced. “Tell me.”

“No,” Peter muttered. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and for an instant he imagined he could still taste Russell.

“Must be someone on the night shift,” Rebekah said. “Manny? No, you wouldn’t go for Manny. He’s way too hairy.” Another verse of the song went by as Rebekah thought. “How about Russell?”

Peter slouched further into his chair. “I’m not telling.”

Rebekah scooted her chair closer and grinned playfully. “Maybe I should ask your brother what kind of guys you’re into.”

“Fuck off!” Peter snapped. Around them, several residents turned to see what was happening, but they looked away as soon as they saw the dark expression on Peter’s face.

“Sorry.” Rebekah scooted her chair back into line. “Forget I said anything.”  
\--

On Friday, Russell made Peter strip, spread himself out of the bed, and put on a show.

“Come on, tell me what a whore you are,” Russell panted from the room's only chair. He kept his eyes fixed on Peter’s hand as it slid languidly up and down the long curve of his cock. “Say it.”

“I’m a dirty slut,” Peter whispered. He closed his eyes and imagined it was Nathan watching, Nathan’s hand stroking him. “Feels so good.”

“Keep going,” Russell ordered.

For a moment, Peter was thrown out of his groove, but he quickly delivered a firm squeeze to his cock to ground himself again. He concentrated, picturing Nathan’s sharp brown eyes watching him perform. “I’m a whore for you,” he breathed. He let his legs fall further apart, giving him more room to work. “Love your cock, need it so bad.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Russell said, but his voice was far in the background.

Peter could feel Nathan’s eyes on him, warm and appreciative. “Want you to fuck me. Stick your big dick in me, make me scream.” He sped up the pace, jerking in long, smooth strokes. “I love it when you’re so deep in me, fucking me so hard I’ll feel it for days, walking around remembering how damn good you feel, how I’m your whore.” He twisted his hand around the head of his swollen cock, coating his fingers with leaking pre-come.

From somewhere far away, Russell muttered, “Christ.”

“Please,” Peter moaned. “Need you inside me.” He squeezed hard around the base of his dick, and slid his other hand under his thigh to tease the tight pucker of his ass. He could see Nathan’s eyes narrow in interest, but still he didn’t reach for Peter. “I’ll be so good for you, I promise. Please please please.” He pressed one dry finger into his ass, and then his dick jerked uncontrollably, spurting come onto his hand and his belly.

Peter was brought back to earth again by Russell’s hands on his belly, rubbing come into Peter’s skin. “That was so good, baby,” he whispered.

He leaned over to suck bruises into Peter’s flesh along his too-skinny ribs where the semen was drying while Peter lay passive, floating in a sort of numb bliss.

“Don’t worry,” Russell hissed into Peter’s ear. “I’ll give you what you need.”  
\--

Nathan didn’t show for visiting hours on Saturday, either, and Peter was furious for a moment until he remembered that Nathan didn’t know about his ultimatum, didn’t know that by staying away he was giving Peter tacit permission to whore himself out.

Rebekah didn’t have any visitors either, of course, and Peter felt her watching him from across the activity room.

He ignored her.  
\--

On Saturday night, Peter let Russell fuck him.

There wasn’t enough room on the bed, so Russell dragged Peter to the floor, dropped a tube of lube in front of him, told him to get ready, and then threw himself into the chair in the corner.

Peter stripped first, pulling off his clothes there on the floor and leaving them in a pile at Russell’s feet. Then he got on all fours and arranged himself to give Russell the best view of his spread ass. He poured a little lube onto his hand. Not too much: he wanted to be sore tomorrow. He wanted it to hurt. That was part of the ultimatum: he really belonged to Nathan, so he was going to abuse the goods as much as possible.

Reaching between his legs, Peter slid one slick finger into his ass, and Russell grunted in satisfaction. Peter pushed a second finger in quickly and relished the painful stretch. He rocked back against his hand.

A memory came unbidden: Nathan teasing him with the tips of two fingers, his other arm wrapped tight around Peter’s waist to keep his still. A playful, “There something you want, Pete?” And Peter laughing and struggling to fuck back onto his brother’s fingers.

“Keep going,” Russell said. A sharp zip signaled his fly going down. Peter added a third finger, stretched and twisted them inside.

Russell shifted to kneel behind Peter. He ran his large hand down Peter’s back, and Peter leaned into it, continuing to work his fingers deeper. Russell’s hands roved over Peter, exploring. It felt strange; Nathan loved to touch, yes, but he knew Peter’s body well, like a favorite song. He knew the places he was ticklish, little patches of skin that were fun to lick, and the spots that would make Peter moan and beg.

Russell touched him like he was examining a fine cut of meat: appreciative, but not looking to find anything in particular. He tapped two of his fingers on Peter’s mouth, and he opened up to suck them. After a moment, Russell pulled them out and his hand drifted between the spread cheeks of Peter’s ass. A finger pressed in next to the three already inside, and Peter had only a moment to try to relax before Russell forced his finger in. He hadn’t been ready, and it hurt, but Peter was beyond caring. He breathed through the pain and pushed his hips back to take their mingled fingers deeper.

“God what a slut,” Russell hissed. He smacked his free hand hard against Peter’s ass. Peter gasped as he reflexively clamped down on the fingers inside him. “You like that?” Russell asked.

 

Peter wondered if he could get Russell to hit him hard enough to leave a mark: more evidence for Nathan. “Harder,” he moaned, and resumed sliding his fingers in and out of his stretched hole.

“I knew it.” Russell spanked him again before shoving a second finger in next to Peter’s. Now Peter was trembling with the burn of it as Russell hit him again and again. At last Russell ran his tongue across Peter’s ass—it felt cool on the abused skin—and reached around to feel Peter’s dick, which strained against his belly. “God, you were just made for this, weren’t you, Peter Petrelli?” Coming from Russell’s lips, the name sounded like an obscenity.

Russell jerked his fingers free of Peter’s ass, pulling Peter’s hand with him as he went. Then Peter heard the rip of plastic and turned to see Russell roll a condom down over his straining erection. He grabbed Peter’s hip with one hand, lined himself up and pressed forward. With all that prep, he slid in easily. Peter almost cried at how easy it was.

“Good boy. This is so good.” Russell pressed one hand between Peter’s shoulder blades and held him down when he began to move, leaving Peter’s ass high in the air.

As Russell fucked him, Peter closed his eyes and imagined Nathan was watching, imagined his rage at seeing his baby brother get plowed from behind by a virtual stranger. He wondered, if Nathan were there, whether he would pull Russell off and take Peter for himself or—. A horrible thought struck Peter, so much so that he lost his rhythm of pushing back into Russell’s thrusts. Luckily, Russell seemed not to notice Peter’s sudden lack of attention. He dug his fingers tight into Peter’s hips and thrust in all the way, grunting, and then slumped against Peter’s back, breathing hard.

As Russell reached lazily under Peter to jerk him off, Peter tried to banish the nagging doubts that had suddenly assaulted him. What if Nathan didn’t want him anymore? What if, with all this, Peter had soiled himself beyond what Nathan was willing to forgive? Peter felt tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked them away furiously. No. That wouldn’t happen. Nathan had driven him to this, left him no choice. He was perfectly justified.

Russell growled, “Come for me, baby,” and Peter let go, hips jerking with a sharp, painful orgasm as he spurted over Russell’s fingers. As Russell lay on top of him, idly fucking two fingers in and out of Peter’s stretched hole, Peter’s heartbeat began to climb down from the rabbit panic of the previous moments. But still… he was uneasy. If this didn’t get Nathan’s attention, he was going to have to do something really drastic.  
\--

On Sunday, Peter went to mass with the rest of the residents. He stared at the image of Saint Vivian, elegant and serene in her window.

He didn’t recite any of the prayers. He thought about sticking around after mass to give a confession, but he saw Rebekah—who never came to the church services— trying to catch his eye from across the chapel, and he fled back to his room.  
\--

On Monday morning. Nathan was in the visitor’s room waiting for Peter. When the orderly (the guy who smelled like pizza) took up his place near the door, Nathan growled, “Thanks. You can go.”

“Are you sure it’s okay to—?” the orderly asked.

“Yes. Get out,” Nathan said. He didn’t take his eyes off Peter.

“It’s been awhile,” Peter said.

“You look like crap, Peter.” He said it roughly, like an insult, but Peter could tell he was worried, a touch off balance. Maybe feeling a little guilty already. Perfect.

“I haven’t been sleeping.” Peter plopped into the chair across the table from his brother. His ass, still sore, throbbed in protest. “I’ve been busy.”

“Glad to hear it. Have you—.”

“I’m fucking an orderly,” Peter interrupted.

Nathan held very still. “Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

An entire minute went by in silence; Nathan just looked at him, and Peter couldn’t read anything in his eyes. “Who?” he asked finally.

“As if I’d tell you.” Peter leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I don’t want you to get anyone fired.”

“You’re full of crap, Peter.”

“I’m not lying.” He stood and pulled down the neck of his t-shirt to reveal the array of bite-marks and bruises on his chest. When Nathan said nothing, he turned and pulled the shirt up in the back to show the angry red nail tracks in his skin. “You want me to pull my pants down, Nathan? See how red my ass is?” He came closer to Nathan and lowered his voice to a bedroom whisper. “He likes to spank me while we fuck, telling me what a sweet little whore I am, what a good come-slut—.”

Nathan struck fast like a snake, and before Peter could react, he’d pushed him against the wall, knocking the air out of him. “Shut up.” He laid his arm against the back of Peter’s neck, pressing his face into the plaster. “Why would you do that?”

“You said you were done with me. You said you didn’t—” Here Peter’s voice hitched, but he pushed past it. “Didn’t want me.”

“You can’t do this.” Nathan spun Peter around so he could meet his eyes. He sure looked angry now, and Peter’s feeling of smug satisfaction grew.

“You’re not around to stop me.”

Nathan kept Peter pressed to the wall, kept him pinned with his eyes. “I know you, Peter. This isn’t what you want.”

“You don’t care what I want,” Peter snapped. He felt a lump forming in his throat again, but he ignored it. “You left me here, and you lied to me.”

“For your own good. Trust you to take a chance like this and turn it into a pissing contest.”

“Then do something about it,” Peter said. “Get me out of here.”

“Fine.” Nathan released his hold on Peter and took a step back from the wall. His face was unreadable.

“Fine?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Fine.”  
\--

The next morning, Peter was shaken into wakefulness. “Peter, let’s go.”

“Nathan?” He opened his eyes sleepily.

The angel-faced orderly stared down at him. “No, I’m Tom, Peter. You know me. Let’s go.” He gently took Peter’s arm and pulled him out of bed. “Put your shoes on, buddy.”

“Huh?”

“Come on, Peter. We need to get going.”

Peter registered that the orderly—Tom—was holding a duffel bag, and that the room was stripped of the few things that had really belonged to Peter: a framed picture of him and Nathan, a couple get-well cards from Angela, a few unsent letters. Peter was assaulted by a sudden, giddy rush of blood that left him lightheaded. He’d expected Nathan to keep his promise, but not so soon. Nathan hated being manipulated. He’d been furious yesterday, and Peter knew he couldn’t have gotten over his anger so soon. Still, it didn’t matter what sort of punishment Nathan wanted to mete out so long as he let Peter come home. He grabbed his shoes.

Tom led him through the halls, empty at this early hour, downstairs and out into the courtyard. Peter blinked in the bright morning light, and smiled to feel the sun on his face. It felt like freedom. When his eyes adjusted, he saw Tom holding open the back door of a van.

“Come on, Peter.”

Not a town car or a taxi. A white van with “Our Lady of Mercy” stenciled on the side in neat blue lettering. Peter stared, uncomprehending.

“Let’s go. Get in.”

Something was wrong here, and the euphoria Peter had been feeling moments ago came crashing down. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“Come on.” Tom stepped forward to grab his arm, and Peter jumped back out of his grasp.

Tom wasn’t taking him home. Nathan had lied to him again. But if Tom wasn’t taking him home, then where the hell were they going? A wild thought struck him; Nathan was going to have him killed. He backed up another step.

“Peter,” Tom said warningly.

“I want to go home.” Peter was ashamed of how small his voice sounded.

“You’re going someplace new. Isn’t that exciting?” Tom crept forward one slow step, then made another grab. Peter jumped back again, and ran into something warm and solid.

“Hey. I just heard this one was getting transferred to Stonybrook. Came to see him off.” Peter turned to see Russell standing behind him. “Are you being a bad boy, Peter?”

“He won’t get in the damn van,” Tom muttered.

“Nah. You just have to know how to handle him.” Russell wrapped a hand gently around the back of Peter’s neck and steered him into the van. Peter didn’t resist. This was no big conspiracy, just routine for them. Peter was another chore to check off the to-do list: transfer crazy slut boy. He wondered if Nathan saw him the same way.

The back of the van was padded all over, with a bench lining each side. Russell pushed Peter down on one of the benches and buckled him in, letting his hands linger in Peter’s lap.

“Thanks Russ,” Tom said from outside. “Close it up for me?” The driver’s door opened and closed, and Peter heard the van rumble to life.

“It’s been fun, baby.” Russell gave Peter a hard squeeze through his pants and a quick, dirty kiss. “Sorry I couldn’t have enjoyed you longer.”

Before Peter could muster a response to that, Russell had climbed out and slammed the back door of the van, leaving Peter in darkness.  


* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _Don’t Look Back_ , Nathan Petrelli has his brother committed to a mental institution. Peter suspects that Nathan’s reasons for locking him up have more to do with Nathan’s nervousness about his campaign and his guilt over his sexual relationship with Peter than with any noble concern for Peter’s well-being. In his attempts to get Nathan to relent, Peter unwittingly makes things worse, and then much worse.

***  
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd  
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,  
Into the living sea of waking dream,  
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,  
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem  
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best  
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.

\- From _Written in Northampton County Asylum_ by John Clare  
***

The security was much better at Stonybrook Asylum. Peter was confined to his room, which looked more like a dorm than a hospital. A double bed sat under the barred window. A dresser held six identical sets of blue cotton pants and white t-shirts, and one gray hoodie. There was a chair next to the bed, and a desk with a drawer that contained only a hardcover copy of the New Testament. The walls were so thick he wasn’t sure if he had neighbors; he certainly never heard any.

All the orderlies and nurses Peter saw were female. He wasn’t sure what Nathan had told them, but he did notice that they went out of their way to avoid touching him.

Sheila was the orderly whose job it was to follow him everywhere. She wasn’t very tall, but it was obvious she would have no trouble overpowering a scrawny thing like Peter. Her dark, wavy hair bounced around her neck and made Peter wonder what Nathan’s hair would look like if he ever grew it out.

The boredom was crushing. They took him to a small workout room for a half-hour every day, but he never saw any other patients in the hallways or anywhere else. They brought his meals to his room. Sheila only spoke to him when necessary, and wouldn’t be jollied into idle small talk. He started to develop an understanding of why solitary confinement was such a terrible punishment.

Peter tried to fill the long hours of the day: composing mental letters to his family, trying to recall bits of angsty poetry he’d memorized in high school, or staring out at the small patch of sky visible through his window and imagining what might be going on in the world outside.

He thought about Russian princess nuns, and wondered if Rebekah knew what had happened to him. If she missed him.

They didn’t tie him down at night, which was nice. After lights out, the whole building was deadly silent. Alone with his thoughts, Peter would stroke himself under the covers. He jerked off each night to memories of Nathan.  
\--

During Peter’s daily half-hour of gym time, he usually did push-ups, sit-ups, maybe a few sets with free weights. Today he wanted to run. Sheila leaned against the door and watched impassively as Peter broke into a trot around the room’s perimeter. He’d never been much of a runner, not like Nathan who used to do a 5K every morning, after he got out of the Navy, but now Peter found his rhythm and relaxed to the steady pound of his feet hitting the floor.

He understood why Nathan had always said running cleared his head. Movement gave his body purpose; it felt good after days of sitting in his room. He felt better just to do something, to make progress, to move, even if he was going in a circle. He pushed himself faster. He hadn’t run like this—all out—in years. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt alive. Peter knew he had a reservoir of strength inside him, an untapped well of power. He was strong, he could feel it. But somehow he’d missed something, been at the wrong place at the wrong time, never found the key to activate his potential. He leaned forward, into his stride, and started to feel a dizzy sensation that had nothing to do with running or with drugs. He could just scream with the aching loss of it, with the frustration of wondering what could have been, what _should_ have been. Him and Nathan, owning the sky.

“Honey.” Sheila grabbed his arm to stop him, and he stumbled to a stop. “Hold on a sec.”

He realized he was gasping for breath, panting.

“You’re bleeding,” Sheila said.

Peter reached up to his face, and his hand came away bloody: a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose.

“Come on,” said Sheila. “We’ll go down to the nurse’s station.”  
\--

On Peter’s fourth day in Stonybrook, Sheila took him to see a therapist. Peter noticed that the office had no window. He took a seat in a comfy looking chair, and the psychiatrist, a kindly-looking older woman, sat across from him with her clipboard.

“How’s your mood, Peter?” the doctor asked.

“Fine.” That was a lie, but Peter wasn’t sure what the honest answer was. Frustrated. Raging. Numb, much of the time.

“And how are you sleeping?”

“Fine.” Aside from the dreams. He dreamt of Nathan, mostly, but sometimes he had these nightmares. Really vivid nightmares: a cheerleader running down a never-ending corridor, screaming in terror; Rebekah, trying to tell him something important, speaking a language he couldn’t understand; a giant explosion, all of New York going up in a giant mushroom cloud. And flying. He still dreamed of flying. But he knew better than to say so.

The doctor turned her attention to Sheila. “Does he sleep through the night?”

“Night-shift nurse says he wakes up screaming sometimes,” she said. Talking about him like he was a child. Or an invalid. Or a crazy person.

The shrink turned back to him. “Peter, are you depressed?”

Stupid question. Stupid doctor. “I dunno.”

“Do you ever think about hurting yourself?”

“No,” he lied. He remembered that one, from a textbook, maybe. That was a major indicator for depression, so he shouldn’t cop to it. But he’d be fooling himself if he didn’t admit he’d considered how the contents of his room could be used that way.

“I had to take a steak knife away from him last night,” Sheila volunteered.

Tattle-tale. Peter had just been looking at it. He’d been thinking about what Nathan would say if he cut himself. Maybe on the arm. Or one long slash across the face. Wild thoughts. He wouldn’t have done it. The phrase “cry for help” had been parading around his head the whole time. “I’m not going to kill myself,” he interjected, but the doctor seemed not to hear him.

She scribbled something on her clipboard, tore off a square of paper, and handed it to Sheila. “Here’s his new scrip. I’ll see you both next Thursday. Goodbye, Peter.”  
\--

Now Peter got two green pills, two white pills, and a small purple capsule. The drugs made him sleep a lot. Time passed in a haze. He had trouble keeping track of the days, which was frustrating for a while until he realized that there was no need for him to keep track. He didn’t have anywhere to be, or anything to do, so there was no need for him to be aware of the world at all.

No one needed him. He’d been abandoned, forgotten. Nathan was punishing him again, and this time he’d made certain Peter couldn’t retaliate. And really, Peter should have known better. No one out-manipulated Nathan. Except maybe Angela, and she seemed to have removed herself from this little spat. Disarmed as he was, there was nothing Peter could do except wait for Nathan’s next move.

Still, a nagging voice in Peter’s mind, low beyond the buzz of his meds, warned that he was supposed to be somewhere, supposed to be doing something important.

That night, when Sheila put him to bed, Peter asked, “Let me ask you something, Sheila. Do you ever get the feeling that you were meant to do something extraordinary?”

“Peter, honey. I work in a mental institution.” She pulled his covers up to his chin and headed for the door.

He struggled out of his covers and sat up in bed. “No, I'm not talking about what you do. I'm talking about who you are. I'm talking about being special.”

Sheila paused for a moment, looked back at him, and smiled benignly. “We’re all special,” she said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Peter sighed. He curled up on his side, clutching the covers to his chest. He slept, and didn’t dream.  
\--

Peter wasn’t sure what time of day it was, or if it was day at all. He was laying on his bed, staring into space, and that was all he remembered doing in the immediate past. He thought they might have taken him to the gym already today, but that might have been yesterday.

“Peter, you look terrible.”

Peter sat up in bed and saw Nathan standing by the door. “Are you really here?”

“Why?” Nathan asked. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “Have you been hallucinating?”

“How would I know?” Peter shrugged.

Nathan come closer and put his hand on Peter’s chest. “I’m right here. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Nathan was here. Nathan was finally here. All the words Peter had wanted to say, the swirling tempest of questions and accusations, suddenly stilled. What floated to the surface was, “You’re here.”

“In the flesh.” He looked Peter up and down. “You look like crap.”

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” Peter said simply.

“Don’t be an ass,” he huffed. “I couldn’t just abandon you.”

Peter tossed off the covers and struggled free so he could throw his legs over the side of the bed and get his feet on solid ground. More lies. That’s exactly what Nathan always did, and the pain was as shiny-sharp now as it had been when Peter was three and heard Nathan say he was going away to boarding school. He stopped himself from throwing his arms around Nathan, but barely. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “I can’t be alone anymore, Nathan. I need to at least talk to someone, touch someone. I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want, but please don’t leave me here.”

“Peter… Don’t talk like that.” Nathan sighed. He sat on the edge of the bed, and his hands fluttered uncertainly for a moment, as if deciding whether to touch, before settling on his lap. “I didn’t know you’d take it like this. I’m only trying to…” The bed creaked as he sat up straighter. “Don’t worry, Peter. I’ll try something else. I’m sure the next place—.”

Peter grabbed hold of Nathan’s arm. “Don’t lock me up somewhere else.”

“Peter, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m sick,” he explained. “I take the pills, but I’m still sick.”

“Hey. What is wrong?” Nathan took him by the shoulders and held him firm. It was comforting. “Stop acting like a crazy person and talk to me.”

Peter took a deep breath, and gathered his thoughts. He had to explain. “They’re making me worse. It’s like I can feel how the people around me are—paranoid and delusional, depressed, psychotic, and it makes me feel that way, too. I wasn’t this crazy when you locked me up, was I? Was I, and I just didn’t know?”

“No, I guess you weren’t.” Nathan’s phone jangled in his pocket. He stood up, but Peter grabbed his hand like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

“Don’t go!”

“Jesus, Pete. Calm down.” He pulled his phone out with his free hand and hit a series of buttons. “Just turning off my phone.” He sat back on the bed, and pulled Peter down next to him. “I’m right here.”

“No you’re not,” Peter said bitterly. “You haven’t been. I know you told them not to touch me here, because they all treat me like a leper.” He moved to put his hand on Nathan, but stopped mid-way. It was better if he brought up his mistake first: a peace offering. “And I know I shouldn’t have done what I did with that orderly, but I was trying to make you mad enough to do something, and I guess that worked, but that wasn’t what I wanted either, and I just need something, and if that can’t be you, then I have to take what I can get.” Once he’d begun, the confession poured out of him until he was afraid he’d choke on the words.

“Shhh.” Nathan gathered Peter in his arms and rocked him gently. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Please help me.” Peter whispered into Nathan’s shoulder. “I need you.”

“I’m here,” Nathan said, his hand firm on Peter’s shoulder.

It was easy to slide into a kiss. Peter licked Nathan’s mouth open, and he didn’t resist. Nathan tasted familiar, comforting.

“Peter…”

“Don’t tell me no,” Peter said quickly. He stayed close: close enough to breathe Nathan’s air, too close to look him in the eye. “Not again. I need something to hold onto. Just give me something before you leave me again.”

Nathan’s hand ghosted down his cheek. Peter could see something in his face: regret, perhaps, or maybe just desire. “I never left you.”

“Bullshit.” Peter jerked away.

“Hey.” He grabbed Peter’s chin. “I’m your brother. I’ll always take care of you.” He pulled Peter to him and kissed him again.

Peter resisted the urge to melt into Nathan’s arms, and when Nathan came up for air, Peter pushed him gently away. “Not how it looks from where I’m sitting.”

He’d meant it as a challenge, and from the glint in Nathan’s eye, Peter could see he’d taken it as one. “Does your door lock?”

“Did she give you the key?” Peter asked.

Nathan held up a ring with a single brass key. His eyes were bright with anticipation: the kind Peter had seen in him when they’d been apart a long while, or when Nathan needed the kind of release only Peter could give him. It meant Nathan needed him, too, needed this at least as much as Peter.

Peter felt a giddy rush, like opening a Christmas present. “Yesss.”

He watched with interest as Nathan turned the bolt and deposited the keyring on the table along with his phone. Ever so casually, he loosened his tie and pulled it over his head. In Peter’s mind flashed a brief image of Russell emptying his pockets like a strip tease. Peter squeezed his eyes shut to banish the memory, and when he opened them again, Nathan was draping his jacket over the back of the room’s only chair.

He came back to the bed to Peter down on the comforter and cupped his chin in his hand. “You’re pale.”

“Haven’t been outside.” Peter couldn’t avoid a hint of bitterness.

Nathan rested his forehead against Peter’s. “I’m sorry.”

In answer, Peter darted up to lick Nathan’s lips. Nathan opened for him and stuck his tongue inside Peter’s mouth, exploring as if he was trying to re-learn it by feel. Peter pushed him back for a moment so he could strip off his t-shirt. As soon as he did, Nathan sat back on his haunches and ran a hand down Peter’s bare chest.

“I came to see you for a reason,” Nathan said.

“I know.” Peter leaned forward and licked up Nathan’s neck to worry the skin below his ear.

“Not that, Peter,” Nathan sighed. Peter froze, suddenly uncertain, but Nathan gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I didn’t say stop.”

Peter pressed Nathan back so he was lying with his head at the foot of the bed, and claimed another kiss. He’d be damned if he was going to let Nathan talk himself out of this. And besides, being so close to Nathan, touching him, smelling him, he didn’t think he could hold himself back. He _wanted_ so badly.

“Things have been happening, Peter,” Nathan gasped out between kisses. “Strange things. I’ve been meeting these people…”

Peter pulled Nathan’s shirt up to get at more of his skin. Nathan pulled it off impatiently.

“It can’t just be a coincidence. These people… They can do things,” Nathan continued. Peter bit down on Nathan’s left nipple, and he hissed. “Damn it.”

Peter looked up at his brother with a completely innocent expression. “What, you don’t like that anymore?”

“It’s not that.” Nathan reached down to squeeze his dick through his pants. “I don’t want it to be over too soon.”

Peter surprised himself by laughing: a bright sound he’d forgotten he could make. “You _have_ been stressed.” His hands went to Nathan’s belt, fumbling with the buckle.

“Peter, I’m trying to tell you there’s something going on.” Nathan was trying to sound stern, but Peter could recognize the note of amusement and, stronger, the sharp edge of desire in his voice.

Peter finally managed to undo the belt, and realized his hands were shaking. He made short work of the button and the zipper, and his treatment of Nathan’s boxer-briefs elicited a, “Watch the goods.”

Peter didn’t slow down. He needed Nathan’s cock in his mouth. Right now.

“Ungh.” Nathan let out a strangled groan as Peter finally got his hands on what he wanted and dragged his tongue over the swollen head of Nathan’s cock.

Peter stopped to appreciate the moment, keeping his eyes on Nathan’s face and savoring the responses his brother couldn’t control. He wrapped his lips around his brother’s cock. Delicious. There was nothing quite like this.

Nathan’s hand tightened in Peter’s hair. “Forgot…it felt like that.”

Determined not to let him forget again, Peter took Nathan’s cock all the way down his throat in one quick move.

“Peter!” Nathan pulled him off and wrapped a hand tightly around the base of his cock. “Told you… Too close.”

“Come on then,” Peter said with a crooked smile.

Nathan climbed off the bed, stripped off this shirt, toed off his shoes, and shucked his pants. Peter watched it all impatiently, lying back on the bed and stroking himself with a hand down his pants. Nathan looked as beautiful as ever.

“I want you to fuck me,” Peter breathed, spreading his legs suggestively.

“Y’know, I did come here to talk.” Nathan wrapped a hand around his cock and squeezed as he eyed the scene before him.

“Well, your mouth’s not busy,” Peter pointed out. He sat up to grab Nathan’s free hand and pull him onto the bed.

Nathan landed sprawled over Peter. He wrapped a hand around the back of Peter’s neck. “I need to know you’re okay first.”

Peter’s laugh was like a shattered glass trinket. “No, I’m not okay. I think I’m losing it, or maybe I lost it. And I’m doped half out of my mind, but hey—.” He pulled Nathan closer. “This brings me back. You bring me back. You save me. Every time.”

“Stop it,” Nathan muttered. His weight pressed into Peter like guilt. “I haven’t been doing a very good job.”

“So make it up to me.”

Nathan took a deep breath. Released it. “I can’t be everything for you,” he said.

Peter lowered his eyes. “I know.” And he did. He knew Nathan couldn’t be his whole world. It was hard to hold onto that, that one in particular among the chorus of “need him,” “he’s the key,” “nothing without him” echoing through Peter’s mind these days. He’d always been able to stand on his own two feet as long as he had Nathan for a compass. Maybe that’s how he’d gotten so turned around in here. “I know you can’t be everything.”

“But I can be this.” Nathan pressed a single gentle kiss to Peter’s lips.

“That’s what I need.”

Nathan kissed Peter again, a chaste press of lips. He helped Peter wriggle out of his pants, then boxers. Peter’s hand went to his cock the moment it was free, giving it a few gentle strokes to help it the rest of the way to full hardness. Nathan’s hand joined his, pumping it slowly. “Still beautiful,” he whispered.

“Please. Need you inside.”

“I don’t have—.”

Peter pulled Nathan’s hand to his mouth and sucked two fingers in. He banished the memory of Russell—latex taste and lust-filled eyes—and concentrated on Nathan’s face: attentive and almost reverent. When Nathan’s fingers were suitably wet, he let them slide from his mouth.

Nathan trailed his hand down Peter’s chest, pausing to tweak a nipple before continuing down, ghosting over the inside of Peter’s thigh and over his sac to press against his opening.

“I’m ready,” Peter breathed. “I want it.”

Nathan slid one finger in first, and Peter pushed back against him, taking it eagerly. “More,” he grunted. Nathan added the second finger, and Peter tried to relax, fighting past the dry burn of it to focus on Nathan. Nathan, who was watching Peter’s every reaction.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Keep going.” Peter pushed his hips up into Nathan’s hand.

Nathan pressed his free hand down on Peter’s hip to hold him in place. “Not if it’s hurting you.”

The response slipped out unbidden. “Since when have you been concerned about hurting me?” Nathan frowned and started to pull away, but Peter caught his wrist to keep those fingers inside him. “I didn’t mean that. It’s good. It’s what I want.”

Nathan nodded and moved his fingers, stretching Peter open for him. He kissed Peter’s belly. “You don’t know what’s it’s been like for me.”

“That’s not my fault,” he pointed out. “You shut me out. Locked me away.” Nathan was slowing down again. “Go on. More.”

Nathan pulled his fingers out and lifted one of Peter’s legs up and to the side, spreading him further. He positioned himself between Peter’s legs, and then he froze.

His hands tightened: one on Peter’s leg, holding it to the side, the other gripping Peter’s hip. His eyes were focused somewhere near Peter’s collarbone. “Peter… Were you safe?”

Peter’s face warmed as shame flushed through him. In his mind he saw Russell rolling condom down his cock as he admired Peter’s spread ass. Peter lowered his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah, he used… We were safe.”

Nathan didn’t move. “I hate to think of you like that.”

Peter’s blush deepened. He knew. He’d been thinking that exact thing. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said softly.

“Is that an apology?”

“No,” Peter said quickly. “I just… I think we both have enough to make up for.”

Nathan nodded and pressed his hips forward. He slid all the way into Peter with one long, smooth push. He held still a moment, and Peter shuddered beneath him, eyes closed, just breathing and trying to relax.

“You with me?”

“I needed this.” Peter felt strangely lucid. When he opened his eyes, Nathan came into sharp focus. He was so close: not blurry or unreal or faraway like the rest of the world. Peter reached out to touch Nathan’s face, and Nathan let him.

“Hey, you okay?” Nathan started to pull out, and Peter clutched at him, pulling him back.

“It just seems like I’ve been waiting for this forever.”

Peter remembered the first time—the very first time he’d done this with Nathan. He’d nearly been sick with excitement, and Nathan had known. Of course Nathan had known. He’d gone so slow and been so gentle that Peter had begged for “harder,” “faster,” and “more” long before then end. Then, too, he’d hardly believed it was real, he’d spent so much time fantasizing about it. “I waited and waited…”

“I’m here now,” Nathan said, and what Peter heard under it was, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Peter said softly.

Nathan finally began to move, and Peter held onto the bed for dear life. Above him, Nathan slid in deep with every stroke. In this position, he wasn’t hitting the sweet spot every time, but it felt good: familiar and visceral. He loved the feeling of being filled up: having Nathan around him and inside him and so damn close he could feel his heartbeat. Then Nathan’s hand gripped Peter’s cock, stroking it gently in rhythm with his thrusts, using just enough pressure to be maddening. He felt like he was in danger of flying apart, of exploding into a million fiery pieces like an exploding star.

“Nathan, I need you.” It slipped out. He hadn’t meant to say it.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Nathan’s hand tightened on his cock, blessed friction pushing him closer to the edge. Peter clung to him, afraid that if he let go, he’d fly apart. Inside him, Nathan gave a final, deep thrust. Peter felt him shaking with release as his hand tightened around Peter’s cock.

“Help me,” Peter whimpered.

“I am. I will.” Nathan stretched forward to stick his tongue into Peter’s mouth just as he thumbed over the head of Peter’s cock. “I’ve got you, Peter.”

Peter’s hips jerked, and he came over Nathan’s hand without a sound.

Nathan slumped on top of him, chest to chest. Peter could feel Nathan’s heartbeat, racing like his own. They slowed together until Nathan shifted, lying on his side and pulling Peter back against his chest with a possessive hand around his waist.

Peter could almost imagine it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in his apartment. Maybe they’d order some Thai food, re-watch Top Gun for the hundredth time, and fuck around again before Nathan had to go home. Then voices echoed in the hallway. Peter recognized Sheila’s laugh. Behind him, Nathan tensed.

“She won’t come in,” Peter said. “She’s just gossiping with the nurses while she has the chance.”

Still, Nathan didn’t relax until the voices had faded down the corridor. “Is Nurse Ratched with you all the time?” he asked after a minute.

"She's not a nurse, she's an orderly," Peter said with a sad smile. “And yeah. Except when I’m locked in my room.”

Nathan didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

Peter decided to help him out. Nathan had given him something, at least, and Peter was starting to come to terms with the fact that he’d have to make do with what he could get. “You have to go. You’ve got an election to win.”

“Hm,” Nathan grunted.

“What?”

“I was just trying to imagine my life in a few years.”

“You mean, when you’re in Washington and I’m still…here,” Peter said slowly.

“That’s the problem, Peter. I don’t know who I am without you.”

Peter turned under Nathan’s arm so he could meet his brother’s eyes. “Sure you do. You’re Nathan Petrelli. Top of his class, valedictorian, most-likely-to.” Peter couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice. “You're that guy with me or without me.”

“Who's to say I'm not all that because of you?” Nathan propped himself up on an elbow and regarded Peter seriously. “Most of what we are is what people expect us to be. I mean, if you take them away, nothing means anything.”

“And what do I expect you to be?”

“A better man. A good man. No one looks at me the way you do,” he said. He dropped his eyes, but not before Peter saw the sadness in them. “Not the boys. Not even Heidi. Certainly not Ma.”

Peter rested a hand on Nathan’s hip, still damp with sweat. “You don’t need me. You’re doing fine.”

“I’m not,” Nathan said, completely serious. “And this thing… It applies to you, too.”

“Are you saying I’m going crazy because the people in here expect me to be crazy?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But this isn’t working for either of us.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Peter said quickly. He wrapped his arms around Nathan so he wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. “Please don’t lie.” Peter held on tight, breathing in the familiar smell of Nathan’s cologne. He wanted so badly to believe Nathan—to believe _in_ Nathan.

“I’ll fix this,” Nathan said. He tipped Peter’s chin up to meet his eyes. “Peter. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”  
\--

Sheila brought him his breakfast, as usual. Peter thought that something might have changed, since suddenly his whole world seemed brighter this morning, but Sheila didn’t seem to notice any difference. Peter sat at the small table in his room, pushing the yogurt and granola up the sides of his bowl. He brought the spoon to his mouth with just a dab of yogurt on it and swallowed dutifully. Sheila stood watching the whole operation in complete silence.

There was no point in eating this, really, when Nathan was sure to have him out of here by noon. They’d go to lunch together, get something better than this hospital crap.

The silence was interrupted by a knock on the door. Without taking her eyes off of Peter, Sheila opened the door. A nurse stuck her head into the room and whispered into Sheila’s ear, too low for Peter to hear. She nodded once, and the nurse ducked back out.

Sheila came over to the table and hauled Peter to his feet with a firm grip on his arm. “Let’s go, honey.”

His spoon clattered onto the table, and suddenly he was hit with a strange sense of foreboding. “I’m not done with breakfast,” he blurted out.

Sheila threw him a skeptical glance. “Honey, you never actually eat breakfast.” She started steering him toward the door. “Hell, you never really eat.”

Peter dug in his heels. “I don’t want to go. I’m hungry.”

Sheila signed in exasperation. “Honey, you’ve got someone waiting on you. Now come on, or I’ll call the nurse back and have her give you a shot. Is that what you want?”

Peter shook his head and went along, but not without grumbling. It wasn’t right to threaten patients with meds. Someone had made that explicitly clear, once. He remembered a professor of nursing, her hair back in a tight bun. That seemed like something that happened to another person, long ago.

Sheila took him to a room he hadn’t seen before: a room with actual windows and a skylight that let in the morning sunshine. Peter spent a few seconds soaking up the light before he realized who was waiting in the room.

“Mom?” His anxiety washed away.

Angela Petrelli stood in front of the window, the morning light haloing around her dark hair and the fur collar of her coat. She pulled off her gloves and laid them on the table. She looked Peter up and down, sighed, and said, “Nathan was very agitated after he saw you yesterday.”

Peter looked at her blankly for a moment, trying to puzzle out why she was here. Angela stood waiting, and her stern expression didn’t change. “I didn’t mean to—,” he ventured.

“No, you never do.” Angela closed the distance between them and gathered Peter into a hug. “You always try, don’t you, Peter?” She held him at arm’s length again. “Listen. This is a very delicate time for Nathan. He needs to be at his strongest, and you’re not helping.”

The dread that had assaulted Peter earlier came creeping back. “What are you talking about?”

“I know that he’s been coming to see you, probably more often than he should.”

“Mom, I don’t belong in here. Even Nathan realizes that, now.” Peter smiled ruefully, but Angela’s expression didn’t change. “He’s coming to check me out.”

“Oh Peter,” she sighed. “He’s not coming.”

Peter felt a sharp pain somewhere in the middle of his chest, and suddenly there was no air in his lungs. A whispered, “What?” was all he could get out.

Angela pressed him into a chair and sat next to him. “I love you very much, and I will always have your best interests at heart. You believe that, don’t you?”

Peter couldn’t look away; her eyes were almost hypnotizing. “Of course.”

She took Peter’s hand and held it gently in both of hers, like a delicate bird. “Then believe me when I tell you that staying out of sight is the best thing you can do for yourself right now.”

“Is this about the election?” Peter asked warily. “Are you worried that I’m going to embarrass the family?”

“Peter, I just don’t think it would be good for you to be in the public eye right now.”

“This _is_ about the election. Nathan told me that it didn’t matter. He would know.” Peter pulled his hand away, but Angela caught him by the arm.

“Don’t be a stubborn fool. There are things you don’t understand right now, things even Nathan doesn’t understand. He’s always trying to fix everything, and he’d do anything to keep you out of danger. You know him better than anyone, Peter.” She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand how his mind works.”

“Yeah,” Peter whispered.

“Be reasonable, Peter. I need you safe.”

Taking in Angela’s calm expression, he felt like the world was falling away, descending again into buzz and confusion. He grasped for a hold on what she was telling him. “Why wouldn’t I be safe at home?”

“Nathan’s under a lot of scrutiny right now. There are people who want things from him. If anyone found out how _close_ the two of you are, you could get hurt.”

Peter felt a sharp pang of fear. Though he wasn’t sure what she was implying, he had no wish to go further down that road. Instead, he said, “You don’t know what it’s like in here.”

“Don’t I?” Her hand tightened on his arm. “I would not lie to you, Peter. You are far safer here than you would be in the city. Oh, Peter.” She pulled him forward and pressed their foreheads together. “I told you before, I can’t lose you.”

Peter felt his resistance slipping away even as he tried to hold onto it. By the time Angela sat back in her chair, he discovered he’d already made his decision. “What do you want me to do?” he asked dully.

“I already talked to Nathan and told him that I would take care of this. I’m moving you to a different facility. You’ll be allowed contact with the other patients, and you’ll be seeing a psychiatrist regularly. The staff will have instructions to call me anytime you ask.”

Peter nodded, and Angela pulled him to his feet to give him a proper hug.

“That’s my good boy. You’ll be okay. All I need you to do is let me handle Nathan.”  
\--

The new place, Meadow Hills, felt closer to hell than Peter had ever been. He wasn’t sure why. There were patients to talk to, activities, entertainment. There was a small library off of the crafts room. Peter could go to the gym whenever he wanted. His room had a television with two hundred and eleven channels. This place had a whole fleet of nurses—male and female, Peter noticed—in crisp blue uniforms. The nurses reminded Peter of flight attendants, but maybe that was because they kept asking if they could get him anything. There was even a cute nurse who he was pretty sure he could sleep with if he tried. Still, it felt stifling.

His nightmares were getting worse. He never slept through the night anymore, and during the day he suffered terrible headaches. In the daily group therapy session, Peter told the doctor that he was having trouble sleeping, hoping that she’d give him the sort of pills that made the world go quiet. She didn’t disappoint.  
\--

At lunch on his third day there, another patient, a young man perhaps two years Peter’s junior, dark-eyed and handsome, sat down at Peter’s table. “Hey,” he said with a smile.

Peter didn’t reply.

“Is it true you transferred here from Stonybrook?” he asked. Though Peter said nothing, the guy forged on. “That place is supposed to be for really dangerous mental cases. What was it like?”

Peter shrugged and pushed the food—spaghetti—around his plate.

“Well, you don’t look so dangerous.” He scooted his chair closer reached for Peter’s hand. Peter watched impassively as the guy’s thumb brushed over his palm. “I knew you’d be nice.”

Peter picked up his plate of spaghetti, looked thoughtfully at it for a moment, and then threw it, Frisbee-style, right at the kid’s face. He fell back, howling in pain.

Around them, the other patients jumped up. One of the blue-uniformed nurses walked slowly up to Peter, his hands outstretched in peace. “Would you like to go back to your room now, Peter?” he asked evenly.

Peter looked at the young man on the floor, holding his hands to his face and whimpering in pain. “Yes I would.”  
\--

The strange thing was that they didn’t _do_ anything to Peter for chucking his plate at that guy’s face. Peter wondered if all the patients were treated this way, or if Angela had arranged for special privileges.

“How did you feel when you threw that plate at Gregory?” the therapist asked in group.

Peter shrugged and didn’t meet her eyes.

“Okay. Let’s play a little game. How do you imagine you would feel if someone broke your nose?”

The other group members watched him patiently, a semi-circle of acceptance, but Peter didn’t answer.

At Our Lady of Mercy, they would have strapped him down and scheduled him an extra couple of sessions with Doctor Barrister. At Stonybrook, they would have drugged him out of his mind and left him alone in his room. Here, no one offered judgment on Peter’s actions. They let him express himself however he wanted, even if that meant violence. It was like they wanted him to turn into a monster.  
\--

Peter sat at an empty table during visiting time. Throughout the cafeteria, other residents were chatting with their loved ones. Gregory’s mother was cooing over his bandaged nose. Peter frowned. He should feel bad about that. Somehow he couldn’t muster the energy.

An Indian man came into the room clutching his messenger bag nervously against his side. Peter watched him idly. He was cute, in a geeky sort of way. Beautiful wavy hair. And he looked vaguely familiar. Peter felt like he should be able to remember where he’d seen him before; the man was hardly ordinary. Maybe around the hospital? He could be a therapist, or an activity leader. That didn’t seem right, somehow.

The man pulled something from his bag, about the size of a photo. He studied it for a moment and then scanned the room until his eyes locked with Peter’s. His eyes widened, and he shoved the photo back into his bag.

Peter shrank down into his chair, suddenly feeling anxious. The man approached him slowly, glancing around the room as if he was afraid someone might stop him. When he was close enough, he slid into the folding chair across from Peter.

“Are you Peter Petrelli?” he asked in a low voice.

Peter eyed him suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“My name in Mohinder Suresh. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“Are you a doctor?” He took a closer look. This place was certainly _progressive_ enough not to require uniforms of its doctors, but this man had no ID badge: not a well-meaning staff member, then. Still the name touched something distant in Peter’s memory.

“Yes. Well, I’m not a psychiatrist, if that’s what you mean. I’m a geneticist.”

“Why would I need to see a geneticist?” Peter asked. He was starting to feel a little lightheaded, and he wondered momentarily if this was a dream. It was getting harder to tell, these days.

“You don’t.” Suresh leaned in further to the table and dropped his voice to a bare whisper. “Listen, Peter. I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Peter said with a frown. “I’ve been getting better, getting a grip.” So that might be stretching the truth, but no one was here to call him on it. “Don’t try to confuse me.”

“I’m not trying to confuse you,” the man said. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his bag. “You see, I suppose you could say I’m here because of your brother.”

“Leave Nathan out of this,” Peter snapped.

Suresh looked suitably cowed, but he soldiered on. “I talked to your brother because both your names are on a list.” He brandished the paper. “After he had me thrown out of his office, I looked into you. I was able to access some of your records—.”

“You shouldn’t tell me stuff like this,” Peter said with a rueful smile. He couldn’t help but find a little amusement in the geneticist’s earnestness. “You’re feeding into my paranoia.”

“I had a hard enough time tracking you down, you realize. Your family’s gone to a great deal of trouble to keep you hidden.”

Peter frowned. Angela has said she was keeping him safe, but it didn’t occur to him that she was hiding him, exactly. Surely his friends wouldn’t be kept away. Surely she’d told Nathan where he was. He said uncertainly, “It’s for my own good.”

“I read some very interesting things in your file. I have a very important question for you.” Suresh leaned forward even further, intensely earnest. “Can you fly?”

Peter felt cold. “Get out,” he said softly.

“Please, Peter. This is very important,” Suresh said. Can you fly?”

“Get out!” he shouted. Other residents and their visitors turned to stare. Some started to whisper.

Suresh held up his hands, placating. “Peter—.”

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”  
\--

At night meds, Peter told the head nurse he still hadn’t been sleeping, and she authorized an extra pill: one of the yellow ones.

Later that night, he woke up sweating and screaming, with one of the stewardess-nurses standing next to his bed. “It’s just a nightmare, sweetie,” she said.

Peter remembered a New York street clogged with empty cars. He remembered feeling hot, as with a terrible fever. There had been strangers watching him: the cheerleader from his other dream, an Asian man with glasses, a cop, a blonde woman carrying a boy with curly hair. Nathan had been there, too. Peter remembered a dull roar in his ears, and the smell of burning flesh. An explosion. Nathan had been caught in an explosion. He’d died.

The nurse was petting his hair. “Shh, honey. It’s alright.”

Peter couldn’t stop shaking. “Can I have something to help me sleep?” he asked.

“Of course you can.”

She left and returned a moment later with a syringe. Peter sighed in relief when she emptied it into his arm. He didn’t wake up again that night, and in the morning he didn’t remember any other dreams.  
\--

That afternoon, Peter didn’t go to activity time. Instead, he sat in his room and thought about writing a letter. He didn’t have a writing instrument, but he could plan, at least. Maybe he’d write Nathan, tell him about the dreams. But no. He’d promised he wouldn’t bother Nathan with this crap. He could write to Angela. She would probably want to know about a mysterious man coming around feeding into her son’s paranoia. She might even come to visit if he wrote her a letter.

A blue-clad nurse knocked on the door before poking his head in. “Peter?”

Peter sighed. He was not in the mood for any positive healing or social therapy. Not today. “I’m not going to activities,” he said wearily.

“But you have a visitor.”

For a moment, Peter’s heart leapt. But it only took an instant for reality to reassert itself; the only person he really wanted to see wasn’t coming, _shouldn’t_ come. “I don’t want to see anyone,” he muttered. He scooted his chair closer to his table, turning his back on the nurse.

“Peter, don’t you like to have company?”

“I don’t want to see anyone,” he snapped.

The nurse came up and put a hand on his shoulder, and Peter had to fight the urge to shove it off. “Now Peter, what did the group leader say about anti-social behavior?”

“It’s counter productive and impedes the healing process,” Peter mumbled.

“Good boy. So what about your visitor?”

“Fine,” Peter said.

“Was that so hard?” she asked. Her voice was bright and cheerful, and Peter fervently hoped he’d never been this obnoxious to any of his patients.

“No ma’am.”

“I’ll bring you your visitor.”

Peter closed his eyes and let his mind drift. He couldn’t imagine who his guest might be. For all that he’d chased Suresh away yesterday, he wouldn’t mind seeing the geneticist again. A part of him, the part that still wanted to believe he was special, that he had some grand destiny, wondered why Suresh had gone to all that trouble to find him. And why he’d asked about the flying. What did he know that Peter didn’t?

“There you are, Peter,” came a voice from the doorway.

Peter didn’t recognize the man standing before him. He was older, balding, and wore ugly glasses.

“I haven’t seen you in years,” the man said. He came further into the room, fixing Peter with a wide smile. “Look at you all grown up. What a handsome young man you’ve become.”

Peter couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Handsome” wasn’t a word that should apply to someone as broken as him. “Who are you?”

“Oh, pardon my manners. I’m a friend of your mother’s. My name is Bob. I understand that Mohinder Suresh came to talk to you yesterday.”

“He tried to confuse me,” Peter muttered.

“He’s a very confusing man,” Bob agreed. “What did he say to you?”

“He asked me if…”

“If what?” When Peter didn’t elaborate, Bob glanced at the door before lowering his voice and taking a step closer. “If you could fly?”

Peter buried his head in his shoulder. It seemed rude to cover his ears, but if Bob said the f-word one more time, he would.

“It’s all right, Peter,” Bob said, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “We don’t need to talk about that. I understand you’re not well.”

“You do?” Peter cautiously looked up.

“Yes. In fact, I work for a company that helps people like you.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Did my mother send you?”

“I told you; we’re old friends. I have years of experience in dealing with problems similar to yours.”

“You can help me?”

“All you need to do is say the word. If you want, I can get you in a program at our facility that specializes in people like you. I’m always happy to do a favor for the Petrellis.” He picked up a framed photo off the dresser—the one of the brothers together at Nathan’s wedding—and smiled fondly. “But of course, no matter what your mother says, I want to make sure we’re doing what _you_ want, Peter.”

Inexplicably, a flash of an image came to him from his dream, of how Nathan’s skin had burned and peeled away from his skull. Peter shuddered. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t understand. How could you hurt anyone?”

Maybe they were just dreams, but he knew what Freud would say: symbols, metaphors. Angela had said he was hurting Nathan, or could hurt him. “I’m not sure.”

“I’ve dealt with some very sick folks in my time. People who had the potential to be very dangerous.”

Peter’s heart began to pound. Just dreams. Just dreams. He couldn’t fly, he wasn’t going to explode. None of it was real. All in his head.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Peter.” Bob lowered his voice. “I think you have the potential to be very dangerous. That’s part of the reason I wanted to come talk to you. In our facility, we deal with people who might become dangerous. And Peter? I see in you the potential for a lot of destruction.”

“But… I haven’t done anything wrong.” Except jump off a building, jump out a window. Attack his brother. Sleep around to make Nathan jealous. Hurt another patient. Drive away a stranger who wanted to help.

“How long have you been in the hospital?”

Forever. It felt like a year. He wondered if they’d given up his apartment, if he’d have anything to go home to when… Whenever. “Three months?” he guessed.

“Five weeks,” Bob said. “It’s November.”

Five weeks. Could it have only been five weeks? Something important happened in November. It came to him in a flash. “Did I miss the election?”

“No. It’s tomorrow.”

Peter considered for a moment. “This place… Is it far away?” he asked.

“Upstate. In Hartsdale.”

“Dad used to go there on business.”

“Yes he did.”

Peter nodded. There were probably facts there he should be able to put together, but they were too far apart in his head. “Can I have visitors?”

“Well.” Bob sat down. “At first we’ll want to concentrate on your treatment. But after a few weeks you should have made enough progress to go out and about, maybe even come back to the city.”

See Nathan. And Mom. Get outside the walls of these places. Be free. Be well. “At this place. You said if I’m dangerous, you can… help?”

“That’s exactly what we do, Peter.”

“What about my family?” He didn’t even know what he meant by that, but Bob seemed to understand.

“They’re very busy with the election,” he said gently, and Peter nodded. “What do you say?” Bob asked.  


* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _Don’t Look Back_ , Nathan Petrelli has his brother committed to a mental institution. Peter suspects that Nathan’s reasons for locking him up have more to do with Nathan’s nervousness about his campaign and his guilt over his sexual relationship with Peter than with any noble concern for Peter’s well-being. In his attempts to get Nathan to relent, Peter unwittingly makes things worse, and then much worse.

******

I long for scenes where man has never trod—  
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—  
There to abide with my Creator, God,  
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,  
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—  
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

\- From _Written in Northampton County Asylum_ by John Clare  
**

The Waldorf-Astoria ballroom was beautifully done up for the victory party, but at this moment Angela Petrelli was having trouble appreciating it. She was watching Nathan make his way across the room. Instead of moving with the flow of the party, greeting supporters and chatting up the key players, he was making a beeline for the door, brushing guests aside in his haste. She threw back the rest of her wine and deposited the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter as she moved to intercept her son.

“Nathan.” She caught him by the elbow and steered him into a shadowed alcove.

“Let go of me, Ma.” His voice had a dangerous edge to it: the kind Arthur used to have. “I’ve got to go.”

“What’s more important than your own victory party?”

“Peter.”

Angela froze. “What about him?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said evenly.

“What did you do?” He grabbed her arm and pressed her back against the wall.

Angela felt a swell of pride. Sometimes Nathan had trouble being fierce, being ruthless; this was a step in the right direction. “Will you tell me what on earth you’re talking about?”

“I hired a private investigator to find Peter.”

“Oh, Nathan,” Angela said in disgust. In retrospect, she should have realized he’d resort to something like that. He’d been upset at Peter’s “disappearance” from Stonybrook, of course. In fact, he’d given the matter far more attention that he should have, given the impending election. Angela had promised to look into it, and had carefully maintained the appearance of activity without passing Nathan any accurate information. She should have known her sons wouldn’t be kept apart so easily.

“He was at a place called Meadow Hills, in Scarsdale.”

“Was?” Angela forced herself to remain calm. If Nathan had gotten Peter out, if he’d disrupted the plan so close to its fulfillment…

“A man named Bishop checked out him this afternoon.” Nathan tightened his grip on her arm, squeezing painfully. “He had a release form with _your_ signature, Ma.”

“Bishop,” she whispered.

“What did you do?” he snarled.

Recovering her composure, she met his flint-hard anger with steel in her voice. “Bite your tongue, Nathan. I didn’t do this. I spent all day with your wife. We were at campaign headquarters. All day.” As soon as she was done here, she was going to have words with Bob Bishop. Today was too important to have him complicating things.

“You could have had someone—.”

Angela slapped him. He didn’t see it coming, not from her, and she meant to capitalize on the shock value. “How dare you. This is Peter we’re talking about. This is my baby. I’ve been there for him more than you ever have.” A lie, but she knew Nathan’s vulnerable spots, the guilt he harbored when it came to Peter, and she intended to exploit it. “Where is he?”

“The PI couldn’t find him,” Nathan said reluctantly. “This Bishop guy took him and vanished.”

Hartsdale, then. He’d left his name, so he must want Angela to follow. If Bishop had done anything to put the plan in jeopardy—to put Peter in jeopardy—before tomorrow, Angela would shoot him herself. “No one just vanishes.”

“Peter has,” Nathan said bitterly. “Twice now.”

“We’ll find him, Nathan. But I need you to be calm.” She waited for Nathan to stand still and listen. “You can’t walk out of your own victory party. Tonight is too important. Think of all the sacrifices you’ve made to get here. You cannot jeopardize your future over this.”

“By _this_ do you mean Peter?” Nathan asked acidly. “He’s family.”

“Yes, family. _I_ have taken care of this family, Nathan. I have gotten you this far. You must trust me to deal with this.” She touched him on the shoulder. “Peter trusts me. I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”

“I know.” He relaxed under her hand, and she could see his resolve wavering.

“Nathan.” Heidi appeared beside him, deftly maneuvering her wheelchair between the columns. “I’ve been looking for you.” She noticed the tension between them immediately, clever girl that she was. Nathan’s face was impassive, so she gave Angela an inquisitive look. Angela returned a weary smile, a coded Petrelli family SOS that Heidi was more than bright enough to interpret. “Nathan, Senator Hayes wanted a word.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said without looking at her.

“Don’t keep us waiting too long.” She pulled him down for a quick kiss, and then she was off again, expertly threading her way through the crowd.

Nathan was quiet now, thoughtful, and Angela decided to press her advantage. “You are in no position to help Peter right now, but I am. If there’s anything that might help us find him, I’ll do it.” Angela allowed her throat to close up, her eyes to grow a little moist. “I’ve tried so hard to hold this family together,” she whispered.

And that was enough to awaken the protective instinct in Nathan. He pulled her into a hug. “I know, Ma. It’ll be okay. Just… go check it out. If there’s anything to find—.”

“I’ll find it.” She leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. “You look to your future, Mister Congressman. I’ll take care of the family.” She released him and left the alcove. Nimbly threading her way through the ballroom, she offered smiles and quick excuses to well-wishers. At the bottom of the grand staircase, the Haitian was waiting with her fur coat in hand.

“You know about this?” she asked in French.

He nodded.

“Did you know before tonight?”

He shook his head.

Angela’s mouth narrowed into a tight line. “We had better head up to Hartsdale.”

“What about Nathan?” the Haitian asked.

“Don’t worry. He believes in me, and in Peter. He’ll do as he’s told.” Angela turned as she shrugged into her fur, and saw Nathan standing at the top of the stairs, in shadow. From this distance, she couldn’t read his expression, but it was enough to know that he was watching. “Have them bring the car around,” she told the Haitian.

She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth and blew Nathan a kiss. He pressed one hand to his heart in acknowledgement. She headed for the door, but paused behind a column to make certain she’d read her son right. Sure enough, Nathan turned and walked back into the twinkling lights of the ballroom.

Outside, the car was waiting, and barely had the Haitian closed the door behind her then Angela was dialing a number from memory—one she hadn’t expected to be calling quite so soon. It rang several times, and the Haitian was giving the driver directions to Hartsdale on the way down Park Avenue when someone picked up.

“Hello?”

“Bob,” Angela said. “Where is my son?”

“Angela. I was wondering when you’d call.” He sounded smug.

“Where is he?”

“He’s safe. He’s with us at the facility.”

“Have you forgotten about tomorrow?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Not at all,” he said brightly. “There’s just a little matter we wanted to take care of. Insurance.”

“Daniel and I—.”

“Adam Monroe,” Bob broke in.

“What about him?”

“A few of us were thinking that Peter is too valuable to risk.”

“So help me, Robert, if you’re about to imply that I don’t care about my son—.”

“Not at all. Since Sprague is immune to his own powers, there’s no reason Peter wouldn’t be as well. Spending some time with Adam will just give Peter a little more flexibility,” Bob said breezily. “In case anything happens when we introduce Peter to Sprague tomorrow. Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

Angela discovered that she was digging her nails into the car’s upholstery, and she forced herself to relax and not raise her voice. “Are you a complete imbecile? Even someone with Adam’s ability wouldn’t survive a nuclear explosion. Bringing Peter to Hartsdale will just confuse him.”

“He seemed plenty confused already.” Bob’s smug tone was back, and Angela didn’t care for it at all.

“That’s to be expected,” she snapped.

Bob continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “In fact, if your goal was to make him ready to explode, I’d say you’ve done an excellent job.”

“I know my son. He’ll play his part tomorrow.”

“You would have had to move him anyway. The professor’s son has been poking around.”

Angela felt herself tensing again. “Suresh?”

“Apparently caused quite a scene.” Bob seemed pleased to have caught her off-guard, but Angela refused to let herself be needled.

“How did he find Peter?”

“Probably the same way that your son’s investigator did. You must be getting sloppy in your old age, Angela.”

An idea was germinating in Angela’s mind: a silver lining to this unanticipated complication. “We can discuss it when I arrive. We’ll be there in half an hour.” She flipped the phone closed and deposited it in her purse. She slipped back into French to ask the Haitian, “Have you seen him?”

He nodded.

“And?”

“He seemed…agitated,” the Haitian said reluctantly. “He was asking about his brother. About the election.”

“Hm.” Angela turned to the window to watch the lights of the city go by. Peter would always look to Nathan. That was just his way, ever since childhood. What worried Angela more was Nathan’s dependence on Peter. He needed to be stronger than that, for what was to come. As long as Nathan saw the merest possibility of keeping Peter in his life, he could never become what he needed to be. She turned back to the Haitian.

“The transfer papers Bob left at Meadow Hills. What did they say?”

“They name a private hospital in Manhattan.”

“Which will presumably be destroyed tomorrow during the blast.”

The Haitian inclined his head in agreement.

“Bob may have actually done something useful.” Angela nodded her satisfaction. “I’m going to need your help with Peter after tomorrow.”  
\--

Nathan counted to fifty before coming down the stairs from the ballroom and approaching the doorman.

“The woman who just left, in the fur,” he said, gesturing to the street. “Did you hear her say where she was going?”

The young man gaped at him. “Uh…What?” he asked intelligently.

Nathan slipped a hundred-dollar bill into the kid’s hand. “It’s important,” he said.

The kid looked at the bill and swallowed hard. “I think she said Hartsdale.”

“You think?” He put just enough menace in his tone to make the kid pale.

“She said Hartsdale.”

“Thanks,” Nathan said, and turned away. Hartsdale. Dad used to go there on business, and Nathan had gone along once or twice. Bob—that was the name of the man in charge at that nondescript building. Nathan set off down the block, forgoing his checked coat and earning him strange looks from the doorman. In the alley around the corner, he did a hurried check for cameras and onlookers before launching himself into the sky.

It was more difficult than he’d anticipated to navigate in the dark. Nothing looked the same from the air. But the big, dark expanse beyond the city was the ocean, and as long as he kept that on his right, he would be okay. The wind whipped at his hair, and the cold cut right through his clothes, but he ignored the discomfort. He had to keep slowing down, dipping below the clouds to pick out landmarks. Once he identified I-87, it was smooth sailing all the way to Hartsdale.

He made several wrong turns before circling over what he was fairly sure was the building he’d visited with his father. At ten stories, it was one of the tallest structures in the town: all brick and cinderblock. Nathan touched down in the parking lot, and spent a moment smoothing his hair and his rumpled suit. Beyond getting here ahead of Angela, he didn’t have much of a plan. He was going to have to trust his silver tongue to carry the day; it didn’t usually let him down.

Nathan walked right in the front door of the building, up to a startled-looking security guard at the front desk, and said, “I’m here for Peter Petrelli.”  
\--

Peter was starting to doubt his decision. He’d only been here half a day, and already the white-washed walls of this new room were starting to close in on him. The place didn’t look like a hospital; the blonde girl, Elle, who was sure as hell no nurse, hadn’t showed him an activity room, a dining room, or even a gym. The room had a strangely industrial feel that reminded Peter of a prison, complete with an annoying cell-mate who kept trying to talk to him through the wall. At least the man had desisted when the lights had gone off a few hours ago.

Still, Peter had no hope of sleeping tonight, or maybe ever. The dreams came more frequently now, sometimes even when he was awake. They hadn’t given him any pills since they’d brought him here, and Peter was starting to feel light-headed as his morning dose wore off. He was fervently hoping that the morning would bring some sort of heavy-duty tranquilizer. Now that his cell—for that was the only term for the room that seemed to fit—was dark, fear had settled as a cold lump in his stomach, and he couldn’t make it go away. With no drugs to dull their sharp edges, the nightmares were sure to be worse than ever tonight.

Peter was trying to busy himself with recalling the smallest details of the last time he’d seen Nathan when the door to his cell creaked open, and Elle appeared. Her face was marred with a sullen frown.

“Come on, Peter,” she snapped. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“I get visitors?” he asked in surprise. “In the middle of the night?”

She shrugged. “Guess so.”

For a moment, Peter considered refusing to go with her, but then he reminded himself that he’d come here of his own free will. He’d better be ready to deal with the consequences. If he wanted to get well enough to go back to his family, he had to conquer his paranoia. With a nervous sigh, he followed Elle out of his cell. She led him upstairs into an office lined with shelves, where Bob was deep in conversation with… Nathan. Nathan was here.

“Peter?” Nathan caught sight of him immediately. Before Peter had time to decide whether he was dreaming or not, Nathan strode across the room and threw his arms around him.

Dreams didn’t usually feel like that. “Hey,” Peter said softly.

“Now you’ve seen him,” Bob said blandly. “I think that’s enough excitement for tonight.”

“We wouldn’t want to upset dear Peter before tomorrow.” Elle ran a hand down Peter’s arm, and he shrugged it off angrily. He didn’t want her touching him in front of Nathan.

“Here’s the thing,” said Nathan, as he turned to face Bob. “Angela told me to bring him back to the city. We can handle things from there.”

“Is that so?” Bob raised his eyebrows and gave Nathan a speculative look that Peter didn’t like.

“Is that a problem, Bob?” Nathan asked. Peter admired the way he was able to pack those innocuous words with scorn and derision.

“I’m not sure that’s in everyone’s best interest,” Bob said slowly.

Nathan grinned: a shark’s grin, predatory. “She said you might say that. She also said not to take no for an answer. Would you rather wait and tell her yourself?”

It may have been Peter’s imagination, but he thought Bob’s face was getting a little red. “This isn’t the way things are done in this Company,” Bob said tightly.

“I’m taking my brother.” Nathan grabbed Peter by the hand and pulled him to the door.

“Nathan!”

Nathan paused in the doorway, but he didn’t let go of Peter’s hand.

“Tell Angela that this isn’t over.”

Nathan looked briefly at Peter, and then back to Bob. “Tell her yourself.” He dragged Peter into the hallway, and Peter stumbled along in his wake until they reached the elevators.

“You came,” Peter said. It was all he could come up with.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Nathan frowned at the elevator and pulled Peter further down the hallway. “We’re taking the stairs.”

They clamored down the poorly-lit stairwell, with Peter stumbling every third step or so because Nathan would not relinquish his hold on Peter’s hand. “Can we slow down a second?” Peter huffed.

“No.” But Nathan stopped and grabbed Peter by the shoulder so he could look him full in the face. “They wanted to hurt you. Ma was going to let them hurt you, and we have to get out of here.”

Nathan headed down the steps again, but Peter held him back. “You know I’m sick, right? It’s not just in my head. There’s something really wrong with me.”

Nathan shifted Peter’s grip on his hand, linking their fingers together. “Then we fix it together. I’ll help you. Like I should have done in the first place.”

Peter smiled weakly.

A shrill wail began blaring through the stairwell. Red lights set into the wall began to flash. “Guess our cover’s blown,” Nathan said. From below them in the stairwell came the sound of shouting and many pairs of pounding feet. “Come on.” Nathan pulled Peter back up the stairs the way they’d come. “To the roof.”

Peter’s heart was pounding with fear and exertion by the time they burst through the fire exit onto the wide-open rooftop. The alarm became a muffled pulse as the door swung shut behind them. With no hesitation, Nathan dragged him across the roof to the far edge. “We’ve got to get out of here fast. Come on.”

Peter dug his heels in and pulled his hand out of Nathan’s grasp. “I can’t,” he said, backing away from the ledge where the abyss beckoned.

“Yes you can,” Nathan said. “I’ve seen you fly. Come on.” He made a grab for Peter’s hand, but Peter jumped back out of reach.

“I can’t. That’s crazy talk. And destructive. And counter-productive, and it impedes the healing process.” He knew he was babbling, but he had to hold onto something. This could be another dream, a trick of a diseased brain. If he hurt himself following some delusion of grandeur, Nathan would never forgive him.

“Cut it out, Peter.” Nathan made another grab, and this time he caught Peter in his arms. “Listen. I. Can. Fly. And you can do what I can do. I’m not lying. You can do this.”

Peter buried his head in Nathan’s chest. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that Nathan was some sort of hero, and that he could be one, too. But it couldn’t be real. They’d been telling him it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be, that he was sick. And that made sense. “I can’t,” he said sadly.

From the stairwell door burst three guards wielding Tazer-guns. “Freeze!” one of them shouted. “Step away from the edge!”

“Peter, please,” Nathan whispered.

Peter felt as if he might hyperventilate. He just wanted to wake up from all this, to get well so he could get back to his family. He had to know what was real. All anyone had told him for weeks was that he was wrong and sick. He wasn’t special. He wasn’t anything. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t!”

“Shhh. It’s okay.” Nathan held him tighter.

“Put your hands up and step away from the edge!” the guard shouted.

“Until you’re ready,” Nathan whispered, “I can fly for both of us.” He hugged Peter even closer, and then took them into the sky.

As the roof, the shouting guards, and the ground fell away below them, Peter felt a swell of wonder. He tore his eyes away from the vanishing town below and looked at Nathan: fierce, protective, owning the sky. He began, again, to believe.

END.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Into The Living Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/423469) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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